Another Christmas in Hokkaido #3

A male Black Woodpecker at Onuma a couple of days ago. It was just before the sun went down, it is always dark or getting dark when I see them..........

The Ural Owl was in the same place..........

The lake is frozen now....only a few tiny patches of open water remain for the wintering wildfpwl......

Whooper Swan and Mallard mainly but there was the lone Pintail........

The tame tits and nuthatches were around too.

Christmas Day was cold and nasty and today (the 26th) is even worse.........I hope the weather relents by the weekend and I can get out and about.

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Another Christmas in Hokkaido #2

A female Black Scoter in the harbour at Sawara yesterday. The road was a bit icy and slippery in the morning so we decided against another visit to Yakumo. I say 'we' but my wife had the wheel and made the decision. I persuaded here to go to Sawara as i wanted to try and relocate the White Winged Scoter from last week.

I couldn't find it but there were lots of Black Scoter.

They were catching some kind of shellfish.

I only ever saw Common Scoter as black specks way offshore in the UK, it's nice to see them up so close.

There were lots of Scaup in the harbour and also several Black Necked Grebe.

2 female Harlequin Duck came close but there were no males to be seen anywhere.......

So it's Christmas Day. Just an ordinary day here to be honest......I don't even feel the urge to get drunk in the daytime..........

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Another Christmas in Hokkaido

A Ural Owl in one of the regular roosting holes in Onuma. Nice of it to strike a pose too..........usually it just sits still like this.

Also around at Onuma were Black Woodpecker plus a flock of hundreds of Hawfinches being relentlessly harassed by a pair of Sparrowhawks.......

We spent a large part of the day looking for a Common Crane up at Yakumo, unfortunately we couldn't locate it. The only bird in the area (except crows) was a Buff Bellied Pipit.

Inland the eagles were very active, I missed some potential great shots because of my general cackhandedness and the weather was very very erratic with blizzards one minute and blue skies the next. I really wanted some shots of them in the river eating salmon but they were always too far away or they flew off as soon as they noticed me. This was the best I could manage.

I took the same shots of the same bird in the same tree 2 weeks ago.........

A female Harlequin Duck was well upstraem and there were also various common small birds around including Bullfinch.

BIFs are a good fallback.

The forecast for Christmas Day is heavy blizzards and minus 13 on Boxing Day..........I may not even make it out of the house.............

I could go and see The Hobbit but after having found out it will be over 3 parts I might wait for the DVD. 3 movies with a total running time of 9 hours? I reckon I could probably read the book in that time.


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Quiet week in December

A Nuthatch at Onuma earlier in the week. It is one of the tame ones.

If I'm posting Nuthatch pics then you know it's been a slow week.

Here's a Grey Heron taking a dump over Hakodate.

At Onuma there were White Tailed Eagle,Smew, Whooper Swan, Hawfinch, Grey Headed Woodpecker and a lone Pintail among the Mallards. It was very dark as you can see.

Ar Sawara there were lots of birds in the harbours including a large group of Black Scoter. The light was terrible though.

There were also more eagles here was well as Harlequin Duck, Black Necked Grebe and a lone female White Winged Scoter...................too far away for anything but a crappy heavily cropped record shot (and my first photo of one on this blog).

The usual Gull species were sheltering in the ports from the nasty weather. Here is a miserable looking Glaucous Winged Gull.

In Hakodate in the last week I've seen the usual common winter stuff including Common Buzzard, Great Egret and Brown Dipper.

I seem to have been getting loads of spam comments recently so I'm sorry to say I switched word verification back on........................it's a real pain in the a** I know but I was getting a little tired of deleting comments from people with names like Faizal Mahmood telling me how to earn money online.

Very cold now and a big big dump of snow in Hakodate the last couple of days, I'm hoping to get up to Yakumo over the weekend as the eagle activity starts to enter its 4 or 5 week peak around Christmas time.


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A morning in the park

A Coal Tit, Varied Tit and Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker in Goryokaku Park this morning. There was a mixed species flock containing the above 3 plus Great Tit and Nuthatch. Not much else although a passing Sparrowhawk flushed a few small birds including several Crossbill that quickly disappeared again.

There were also Coal tit and Nuthatches in the park near my flat.....................this shot was taken low down and my knees are still hurting.

This Great Egret was also on the river.

Yesterday I was in Kamiiso but no photos survived the cull. There were the usual common ducks and the regular wintering flock of 20 or so Whooper Swans has arrived. There were large numbers of Common Gull on the sea and 1 Great Crested Grebe and 3 Black Necked Grebe in the harbour.


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A gap in the blizzards

White Tailed and Stellers Sea Eagles at Yakumo this afternoon. A bit of a strange day, mostly blizzards but with a few bright interludes. There were lots of eagles at Yakumo, we were showing them to my wife's friends. Lots of missed opps of birds standing in the river and upstream the weather was too nasty for any decent photos.

The Stellers was a fairly big crop, I really have to find a way to afford a longer lens.

We picked up my wife's friends at the ferry terminal in the morning and there was a big flock of Rooks there with at least 5 Daurian Jackdaw. The same 2 species were also present in Mori. A large flock of several hundred Hawfinch was in Yakumo and a smaller flock in Onuma. Other interesting stuff included Black Woodpecker and a late Red Flanked Bluetail at Onuma. Goshawk, Merlin and Buzzard from the car, all the usual ducks including Harlequin at Yakumo.

Last week in Hakodate was pretty unevenful (except a big storm followed by blizzards and then a biggish earthquake)..............a flock of Long Tailed Tits next to the river near my apartment was my most noteworthy bird sighting.

Thanks to Osamu and Yumiko for shouting us lunch and Starbucks..................

A very hot bath followed by a cold beer or 2 in front of the footy beckons.

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On this day (December 8th)................

December 8th 2010.

A Japanese Waxwing, part of a small flock in the park near my apartment 2 years ago today. This is usually the scarcer of the 2 waxwing species found in Japan but 2 winters ago there were lots of both species in town. They generally arrive in mid to late January so this group was rather early...............

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