Spring slowly unrolling

An Osprey at Onuma this afternoon. A heavy crop and a not very good photo but my first Osprey shot of 2012..................

In Onuma the snow and ice had melted quite a lot since last week and the birds weren't as concentrated as a few days ago, they were spread out over the rapidly expanding unfrozen portions of the lake. Large flocks of Pintail and Wigeon were the most noticeable and in the forest were Brambling and thrushes (mostly Dusky and Pale Thrush).

I tried to get better shots of the Great Cormorants, the light was better today but they are a difficult subject, all I could get were flybys and none of them very good.

The tame tits and nuthatches posed nicely in the spring light.

Lots of woodpeckers drumming everywhere: here's a Japanese Pygmy.

Summer visitors have been arriving all week. Barn Swallow, Asian House Martin and Siberian Stonechat in several locales as well as returnees from the south such as Japanese Bush Warbler. Sadly the trees and bushes along the river near my apartment were decimated by Hakodate City at the end of last year so I guess any migrants will just pass over my part of the city now: all that remains are tree stumps and piles of garbage.

Not a great week for photos but at least there were some interesting birds around. In Kamiiso the Gadwall and Falcated Teals from last weekend remained for a few days but defied my attempts of get any decent photos, this was the best of a bad bunch from a few days ago.

We finished off in Kamiiso this afternoon. Most of the ducks have gone now, 7 species of gull were present though as well as this Osprey, another heavy crop.

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17

A Great Cormorant at Onuma today with nesting materials. All the waterbirds were concentrated on one ice free patch of the lake and there were a lot of birds it has to be said.

Not a great picture but this species is quite rare in north Japan and usually occurs only on freshwater. There is a colony at Onuma, it differs from the very similar and much commoner Temincks Cormorant in having a brown sheen to its plumage (the latter has a greenish sheen).

All I could get were BIFs today and not very good ones either.

There were also huge flocks of Pintail and various other ducks around as well as lots of Grey Heron and several Great Egret. The latter were coming into summer plumage.

The Grey Herons were catching large fish in an ice free pond.

The tame Nuthatches were around as were all the common resident species.

I saw 17 species of duck today. The most intersting were Smew and Mandarin at Onuma and pairs of Falcated Duck and Gadwall at Kamiiso. No good shots at all, only a hastily grabbed BIF of a female Mandarin survived the cull.

Other stuff around today included Whooper Swan, Brent Goose, Osprey, Sparrowhawk, Little Grebe, Coot, Grear Crested Grebe and Red Necked Grebe. Here is one of the latter at Sawara, unfortunately it was caught up in some fishing line and was looking in very poor shape.

For some reason the ports at Shikabe and Sawra had very low water levels and were almost birdless, I have no idea why the water levels were so low (I never really notice much in the way of tides here).

So it looks like spring is just round the corner then...........

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On this day (April 8th)

April 8th 2010.

This Black Throated Diver was in the nearest port to my apartment 2 years ago and it hung around a few weeks (I didn't get to see it in summer plumage alas).

A very very quiet week has just passed, nothing around birding wise and it is still pretty cold with high winds and snow flurries. C'mon spring, where the hell are you?

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Glaucous Gulls

After 2 days of sleet and rain we headed up to Yakumo and Oshamanbe for the first time in a while. At Yakumo there wasn't much around: a fishing Osprey, a lone Lapwing and the usual common winter ducks. At Oshamanbe there were 3 Long Tailed Ducks in the port but they didn't come near enough for a decent photo so I turned my attention to the gulls,

The standard 4 large winter gulls of the region were present: Slaty Backed, Vega, Glaucous Winged and Glaucous. The latter is my personal fave and the only worthwhile shots on such a grey day were of this ghostly white species..........

There were 2 adults in a mixed gull flock eating seafood offal in the corner of the port. Not the nicest place to watch birds it has to be said.

It was a bit of a scrum, none of the species seemed dominant. I'd say about 90% were Slaty Backs (the dark ones in the pics below) with smaller numbers of Vega, 3 or 4 Glaucous Winged and 2 Glaucous. There were many more Glaucous Gulls up and down the coast but this was the only place I could get shots of them today.

At Onuma there were lots of Grey Heron and Great Cormorant plus the first Oriental Turtle Dove and Bullheaded Shrike of the year..............but not much else of interest. At Kamiiso there was not a single bird of any species in the harbour (well except a couple of Spotbilled Duck and a few Black tailed Gulls but they don't count).

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Spring?

Today saw clear blue skies and a strong (SW) wind that was bracing rather than freezing. I took the tram down to Irifune to check on the Brent Geese which are always very active at this time of year just before they head north.

There were about 40 or 50 of them, in 2 or 3 loose flocks.

I was trying for BIFs today...........

It is a very photogenic species and appears to be unusually tame here in south Hokkaido, many of these shots are hardly cropped at all.

It was very windy actually and after a couple of hours I'd had enough, hopefully they'll stick around for another week or 2.

Nothing much else about, a few Red Breasted Merganser, Harlequin Duck, Glaucous Gull.........the last few days in town have been very quiet, a female Sparrowhawk and a Goosander a couple of days ago being the only noteworthy species.

When i went to the supermarket this afternoon Trott and Patel were in and it looked like England were going to pull off an unlikely victory. When I got back Panesar was just losing his wicket.............World #1? Really?

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On this day (March 29th)

March 29th 2010.

A Hoopoe near my apartment 2 years ago today. This species appears to be reasonably regular in early spring, this was the 3rd time I'd seen Hoopoes in south Hokkaido.........

Still snow on the ground this March and very few birds around town.........

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Another grey Sunday

A quiet Sunday here in south Hokkaido, tight finances meant we didn't want to spend a lot so we just stuck around town.

The above Whooper Swans were sitting in a snowfield in Ono. Actually it is a paddyfield, in a 6 or so weeks the farmers will be ploughing it and preparing for planting. I noticed the first Skylarks of the year in the same place and there was also a small flock of Rook.

This is amazingly difficult to photograph, they are so wary compared to the resident crow species. It is actually a fairly scarce winter visitor but as I grew up seeing loads of them in England I tend not to bother photographing them much, this BIF was the best one I could get today.

Nothing at Kamiiso apart from the common winter seaducks so I ended up in the bay area, the light was terrible. Lots more common winter water birds here. These are 2 of the more interesting ones, a Pelagic Cormorant and Red Necked Grebe.

So Liverpool's season becomes more embarrassing every fixture (Wigan?!?!).

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