Splattered

We spent most of the day at Onuma. The lake is still 99%  frozen and there was the usual flock of Whooper Swans and Mallards on the one tiny ice free patch. The lone drake Pintail was still there...............it must have stayed the whole winter.

I tried taking some swan pics but they were all crap. There were also a few Smew well out of camera range and a White Tailed Eagle flew over in the afternoon.......

The Nuthatches were as photogenic as ever.

In case you stumbled across this blog and are thinking wow how did he get so close here's your answer.

A couple of Varied Tits put in an appearance but they were not so tame.

Also around were Great, Coal, Long Tailed and Marsh Tits plus Great Spotted and Japanese Pygmy Woodpeckers.

I took a side trip to Sawara. The port had Black Scoter, Goldeneye, Scaup, Harlequin Duck and Black Necked Grebe but nothing was tame and everything stayed out in the middle.

White Tailed Eagle and Peregrine were around but no chances of a photo so we went to a huge seafood processing factory to photograph the gulls and kites.

We only lasted a couple of minutes. What a f**king dump. Hordes of kites, crows and gulls knee deep in rotting fishy offal.

They all took off as I approached and I got covered in birds**t. They totally splattered my down jacket, camera and even my face.

The Nuthatches and Tits are much more civilized.

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Foreigners coming over here stealing our cherry blossoms

The Bullfinches were still around on Thursday and I got a better look at this individual.

This is a different subspecies than the other male (in the previous post). The other male in the flock is the subspecies griseiventris which has dark pink cheeks. It is the common subspecies fround in Japan. As you can see this one is quite different.

This individual has a pink breast and is (I think) the the rosacea subspecies from Korea (or possibly cassinii from China).

I hope they have left some cherry blossoms to bloom this spring. Japan has territorial disputes with China and Korea, there are worries about pollution drifting across the Japan Sea from mainland China and now even the birds from mainland east Asia are destroying the sakura. Shintaro Ishihara would have a fit if he knew.

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Bullfinches and slush

For the last couple of days there have been 2 small flocks of Bullfinch nibbling at the buds in the trees next to the local river. These trees are the cherry blossom trees...................I hope they leave some or the locals will be aghast come late April.

They were pretty tame.

Most of the time they were towards the top of the trees at a bad angle and against a busy background. I spent a couple of hours waiting for them to come a bit lower. Which they eventually did.

There were 6 of themm in this flock. 2 males and 4 females.

This individual was of a pinker subspecies.............

It was much milder this week................and the snow has turned into shin high slush. Very tiring to walk through. I went down to the nearest harbour but could only find a couple of Black Necked Grebe, several Black Scoter and some Scaup bobbing around on the waves. Nearer home there were Varied Tit, Long Tailed Rosefinch, Hawfinch and Nuthatch. The goosanders are still on the river and have been joined by a drake Red Breasted Merganser.

On Monday I was in Kamiiso and the harbour was empty so I waded through the snow onto the beach and found this Kentish Plover.

On the train back I saw Buzzard, White Tailed Eagle and Great Egret.

 Last Sunday we were in Esan. I saw some an interesting enough cross section of winter regulars including an adult Stellers Sea Eagle. an immature White Tailed Eagle, Peregrine, Buzzard, the usual wildfowl including Harlequin Duck and Brent Goose, Black Necked Grebe and lots of Glaucous Winged Gulls. Only one Glaucous Gull though, this one was in the harbour................

So the Bullfinches were a nice end to a rather quiet February. I'm a little tired of winter......................I hope the snow disppears soon and I can wear normal shoes again.


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On this day (February 22nd)

February 22nd 2009.


A couple of male Crossbills in the park near my flat 4 years ago today.

2009 was a bumper year for Crossbills in south Hokkaido. I've seen then before and since but never in such numbers as that spring...............they were everywhere in town and very tame too. The 2 shots above are hardly even cropped.

I saw a few crossbills in town earlier this winter but they seem to have moved on. I checked around town this week for likely looking spots but the weather has been just awful and not only were there no crossbills there was nothing at all of any note whatsoever.............

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On this day (February 20th).................

February 20th 2011.

An immature Peregrine and a Large Billed Crow  in Yakumo  2 years ago today. The falcon was being mobbed by a group of crows but to my eyes it seemed to be enjoying the attention as it led them on a wild falcon chase for a full 10 minutes.......................



I was on the same bridge a few days ago and saw almost nothing let alone a falcon chase........


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Long Tailed Ducks and other stuff

A drake Long Tailed Duck at Oshamanbe this afternoon.

The day didn't start too well. At Yakumo there were still a fair few eagles of both species left but it was too cold to stand on the bridge long (the river was frozen near its mouth) and inland there was a raging blizzard................so we went up to Oshamanbe. The harbour was full of birds: Scaup, Goldeneye, Black Scoter, Black Necked Grebe, Glaucous Winged Gull and a dozen or so Long Tailed Ducks.

They mostly stayed out in the middle but this one popped up in nice light fairly close by (though the photo is still cropped).

Usually the light was behind them..................

We finished the day off at Onuma. There were several Black Woodpecker around including a very vocal pair in the usual spot (making unusual calls, was it courtship?) but they were too far off for a decent photo.

The tame tits and nuthatches posed well just before sunset...................

Great Spotted Woodpeckers are the joint most common woodpecer species (with Japanese Pygmy) but I still don't have a decent photo of one................this was one from today: they just don't seem to like my camera.

So that is probably that for the eagles this winter. I probably won't make it up to Yakumo again for at least 2 weeks and most if not all of the remaining eagles will have gone by then. Not a vintage winter for eagle photos but it wasn't for lack of trying.......................

Blog update, bath, beer, football. My regular Sunday evening..........................

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