Wintry Weather for Winter Visitors #2

I had a couple of spare hours yesterday morning so I thought I'd check to see if the Japanese Waxwings were still around.

They were.

The weather was better than yesterday but the sun was behind the birds. I couldn't go the road behind them as it was being cleared by half a dozen huge snowplows.

I even got a few crappy BIF shots.

It's still really cold, our door gets frozen (inside) every night...................that never happened before.

It was impossible to avoid the cluttered busy background..............

Should have had a faster shutter speed with the above 2.

The deep snow makes it hard to get around to some of my usual haunts so I was glad these were so near my flat..............................

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Wintry weather for winter visitors

A Japanese Waxwing in the park near my apartment this afternoon.

God it's cold. Absolutely f***ing freezing in fact. Bitter wind blowing in from Siberia, deep deep snow everywhere.

Still, winter is the season for Waxwings.

There were about 15-20 in the flock. At first it was snowing so like the eagles last weekend it was very dark and also difficult to focus.

The flock was also regularly driven away by the bigger more aggressive Dusky Thrushes and Brown Eared Bulbuls. I was freezing my a** off in the park hoping they would return and that the snow would stop.

The snow did stop and back they came.

The snow was deep enough to get inside my boots and my feet were frozen so I headed back to the warmth as the snow returned. Hopefully they'll stick around for a few days, the park is only 5 minutes away.

There were no waxwings of either species last year, I wonder if this is going to be a waxwing winter or not..............it's looking good so far at least.

Other stuff around this week included Brown Dipper, Wren, Siberian Meadow Bunting, a flock of half a dozen or so Long Tailed Rosefinch, Hawfinch, Dusky Thrush, Grey Heron and Great Egret.

There were 4 egrets around a couple of days ago and one of them caught a fish, I just about managed to get my camera on it just before it finished swallowing....................

It may be pretty darn cold up in Hokkaido but winter is my favourite season...................Eagles and Waxwings, what more could one want?

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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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