Eagles in the gloom...................

After a week of really heavy snow I finally made it up to Yakumo yesterday......................but couldn't take any decent photos despite spending several hours there and there being plenty of eagles around.. I went with 2 friends today for a very short visit in the morning  in absolutely awful snow storms but we got lucky....................I finally got some eagles standing in the river shots.

These were taken in a small parking area next to the river, luckily the tiny 'car park' (really just a place for engineers to park their trucks as its is next to a small mobile phone tower) had been cleared of snow.

I often see eagles here (in fact lots of my eagle shots are from this exact same spot) and they feed in the water but always fly off as soon as they see the car.

But today they didn't...................

As you can see it was snowing but for about 5 minutes the raging  blizzards stopped.................it was still pretty dark though and focusing through the falling snow was really tough.

There do seem to be a lot of eagles of both species this winter.....................

At first there were only White Tailed Eagles in the water but then a Stellers joined them.................

It plucked a salmon carcass from the river and devoured it very quickly..................

I have read somewhere that Stellers are much faster eaters then White Taileds................

This individual certainly wasted no time...................

The weather was too bad for BIFs, this was the only one of the day...............

So despite the lousy lousy weather we got lucky today.................I wonder how long I'll have to wait for another day like this one? I have been to this spot 30 or 40 times in midwinter over the last 6 or 7 years, today wasn't especially different from all the other times................

Other stuff around this week included White Tailed Eagles in Kamiiso, the usual common winter wildfowl everywhere, Common Buzzard in town, Bullfinch at Yakumo, Daurian Jackdaw and Rook in Ono, the huge flock of Hawfinch is still at Onuma as was Black Crowned Night Heron, Black Necked Grebe at Moheji....................
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Meet the Locals #1

DAURIAN REDSTART (Phoenicurus auroreus)

This is one the common local birds in Hakodate and is probably not so well known outside east Asia. It breeds across temperate Asia but is only a winter visitor to Japan. I generally see the first individuals in mid October and they hang around until early April with a few passing through after that. We get the eastern auroreus subspecies (the other one winters in India).

In winter there are usually several in the bushes along the river near my apartment. They are almost all males, I don't know why there are so few females. I guess they winter further south as they are common in autumn and spring.

The males set up temporary territories and aggressively defend them, not only against other Daurian Redstarts but also against similar insectivorous species like Red Flanked Bluetail which pass through in late autumn and early spring.

As you can see the male is a beautiful bird.

This is a female.......................

They are a very active and quite vocal with a persistent hard medium pitched call that reveal their presence as they flit around in the undergrowth.

I have to say I have a soft spot for redstarts. Alas I never saw many redstarts of either species in the UK. I saw a few Common Redstarts, once on spring passage in Penwortham and several times in Scotland or the Lake District. I recall seeing lots of Black Redstarts when I lived in Bavaria and 2 or 3 different species in the Himalayas on my visits to Nepal.

These are all old pictures by the way, they were all taken 3 years ago in Jan/Feb 2010.

It's been a bad bad week weather wise hence some recycled photos...........................

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2012 Best Of

Well what a funny old year that was. A ridiculous amount of snow from January right through to the end of March followed by the hottest summer in Hokkaido for over 100 years.........................

Anyway here is a random selection of 30 or so of my favourite shots from the last 12 months.

 The eagles showed well at Yakumo in early January but then 2 things happened. The snow came. Lots and lots of it. This made getting around tricky. Then the eagles all seemed to disappear.....................by February there were none at all. Strange. Must have been a poor salmon run I guess.

The Ural Owl at Onuma showed well too.

Sadly this dead  tree with the nice Owl hole has fallen down.................let's hope the Owl wasn't in when it happened.

There was a big invasion of Rough Legged Buzzards into south Hokkaido last winter, this had long been a bogey species for me but I saw them in 3 different locations. This very tame one was just outsisde Hakodate.

See how cold this egret looks..............

The cold winter meant very few small birds around. No waxwings, no winter finches. Nothing really except for the common residents.

Not many birds in the ports either, grebes were very scarce................

This injured Red Throated Diver was in Kamiiso.

I finally got acceptable shots of these 2 species, Black Scoter and Smew.................

And another target had been a male Black Woodpecker.....................

Here are 2 very different images of Red Foxes.

Spring and summer were a little quiet, we did a big camping trip around Hokkaido but I seemed to miss out on good photo opps. Nearer home there were a lot of Narcissus Flycatchers in the local park..............

Otherwise it was just common stuff..............

Ospreys seemed commoner than ever this summer....................

A pretty quiet wader season (both spring and autumn), only common species but there were some nice tame individuals on the local beaches.............

Only 4 new additions to my Japan list and even less to my Hakodate list, a bit of a letdown after a very good 2011 on both counts. Still a few fairly common species missing from both so I'm sure I'll knock some of them off next year.

Thank you for reading this blog and please come back in 2013..............

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