The annual lull.........

Well it's that time of year again. Mid July heralds a month or so of very quiet birding, most of the summer stuff has stopped singing and now I'm just waiting for the waders to start passing through in mid August.

The 2 staples at this time of year are the fishing Ospreys at various locales and the Japanese Green Pigeons at Shikabe. I had no luck with the Osprey pics last Wednesday at Yakumo (despite there being four of them fishing at the rivermouth) and headed out to Shikabe this afternoon on a dark grey afternoon more in hope than expectation. Recently every time I've been there have been fishermen standing on the rocks where they come down to drink but today I had the beach all to myself........

The light was terrible and I couldn't get that close to them but I managed to get a few shots of what is one of my favourite local species.

It was a bit dark for BIF shots.........

Not much else around here but I was surprised when 2 Grey Tailed Tattlers flew overhead heading north.............what's their story? Pretty late to be heading north to breed........

At Onuma earlier I spent a couple of hours getting bitten by mosquitoes.

If the above pigeons seem exotic to UK birders the Little Grebes and Moorhens at Onuma are reassuringly familiar. The latter is much scarcer (and shyer) than it is in the UK.

Nothing much in Hakodate the last few days, just common stuff like this Brown Eared Bulbul.

No sport on TV or the internet this weekend...........thank god for beer.

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A trip to the middle

A Siberian Rubythroat at the top pf a mountain in Tomamu this morning. There were loads of them singing near the top, a bit of a surprise as I'd always thought of them as a coastal grassland species.

We'd got up early and taken the ski-lift up to the top as my wife wanted to get above the mist and take some photos of it............this is the view (taken with my 100-400!).

It was the second ski-lift we'd been up on this short trip to central Hokkaido.

The previous 2 days we'd been camping near Asahikawa, my wife wanted to go the zoo.

The weather was terrible, heavy rain and grey skies all the time (at least it wasn't cold). We went up Kurodake in Daisetsuzan, a well known high altitude birding area. The mist and drizzle meant no photographs and we couldn't hike up to the top as the trails were too slippery. I had 3 target species to photograph (or at least see): Pine Grosbeak, Nutcracker and Japanese Accentor. I didn't connect with any of them. I did see a few things in the gloom..............Sooty Flycatcher, lots of singing Red Flanked Bluetail, Wren, Bullfinch.............I'll go back there in better weather for sure.

Other stuff on the trip included Little Cuckoo, Siberian Blue and Japanese Robin, Osprey and Hobby.


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Halftime again........

A lazy midsummer week 2012 is 50% over............

The Red Cheeked Starlings have fledged..........

The young are everywhere.........inside the bushes..........

and also on top................

The adults were busy bringing them food........

Nothing much else around: Barn Swallow, Asian House Martin, Oriental Reed Warbler and the usual common residents...............


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Gone fishin'

One of many Black Browed Reed Warblers at Yakumo yesterday.

I was trying to get some Osprey shots.........

I wanted to get some shots of them fishing, this was the best sequence I could manage. It was quite far out and these are heavy crops, it was also before the sun came out from behind the mist.........

It stayed in the water for a few seconds............

....................before emerging with a fish.

I also saw a Black Kite dive and catch a fish and (surprisingly) a Grey Heron which plunged into the waves offshore and flew off with a huge fish (the gulls followed it and made it drop the fish though).

It wasn't only the birds fishing..........

This Red Fox at Onuma this afternoon was bringing food to its cubs, the same ones we photographed several weeks ago.

The cubs are one month older and not as cute anymore.........

Bird of the week was a surprise Oystercatcher on the beach at Kamiiso. Other stuff around included Scaup, Pochard and Falcated Duck at Yakumo, more Ospreys at Kamiiso and a Grays Grasshopper Warbler at Shikabe which stayed in view for about 3 whole seconds (that's 2.5 seconds longer than any GGW I've seen before).

I stayed up to watch England lose on penalties to Italy. It would have been embarrassing if we'd gone through after being second best for almost the whole game but still.............that's now 6 times out of 7 we've lost on penalty shootouts. I knew we'd lose the shootout as soon as it started.

But Euro 2012 was better for England than I'd expected............plus at least now it means no more 3.45am rises to watch England blunder through games with 30% possession.


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Back after a break

An Oriental Reed Warbler at Kikonai this morning.

I've had a lazy last couple of weeks, to be honest for various reasons I was a little tired of birding and photography and although I visited all the regular places in the last 2 weeks with camera on hand I was very halfhearted and unmotivated..........the grey skies didn't help, no new lens materialized this spring as I'd hoped and my slowing 4 year old computer now makes photo processing a real chore...........so I just though f**k it and I enjoyed a few lie-ins and afternoon naps instead. We all go through periods of being fed up and p***ed off with the world so I won't bore you with the boring details.

This female Bullheaded Shrike was at Sawara this afternoon.

We were in the area to look for Japanese Green Pigeon at Shikabe, we did see some but they weren't coming down to the rocks for a drink. This individual was in the forest gloom at Onuma.

Onuma now belongs to the mosquitoes.

At Kikonai there were lots of Oriental Reed Warblers.

Other stuff around in the last couple of weeks included Whooper Swan at Kikonai today, a late Grey Tailed Tattler up until yesterday at Kamiiso, the first Little Cuckoo of the year at Moheji and lots of Grays Grasshopper Warbler at Shikabe, Yakumo and Oshanambe. Eastern Marsh Harrier, Osprey, Intermediate Egret, Great Egret, Night Heron, the common woodpeckers and summer migrants at Onuma, Russet Sparrow in Hakodate, Harlequin Duck plus a few other late winter ducks hither and thither, the usual grassland stuff at Oshamanbe...........

I caught England v France on Japanese TV but had to follow the Sweden game on a very intermittent online feed (what happened to these online feeds? They used to be much better quality).............I was so pessimistic about England's chances I didn't fork out for the ¥3000 or so to subscribe to the satellite channel showing all games live.

The Ukraine game isn't on regular TV (but if we finish 2nd in the group then that quarterfinal is being shown at least) so I'll be up at 4am getting frustrated at England(s inability to keep the ball and my inability to find a decent online feed...........anyway it is weird to see England not being absolutely awful in a tournament for a change, even if the stupid f**king picture freezes every 30 seconds or so.

Before it started I though we'd have 1 or maybe 2 points going into the final game needing a win to go through (and probably relying on a favour in the other game)..................so my expectations have already been exceeded. Oh and what a header by Caroll..............

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On this day (June 9th)............

June 9th 2008.

A Ruddy Kingfisher at Onuma 4 years ago today. They were always a bit far off to capture with a 400mm lens, this heavy crop was the best I could manage. After 3 consecutive summers with this species in Onuma from 2006-8 I haven't seen any since this pair bred...............

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Back to normal

At the end of our long trip around Hokkaido we stopped off at Yakumo on Monday afternoon, a place nearby home where we often go...................

Reassuringly the Black Browed Reed Warblers and Siberian Stonechats were both showing very well.

Other stuff included late Scaup and Pintail, we were only there for half an hour or so before arriving home exhausted in Hakodate.

I've been too busy/lazy/birded out to go out since we got back.................that may change come the weekend.

The 3rd Test plus the start of Euro 2012............nice.

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