More nice birds in awful weather

Ther first day of the 4 day Golden Week long weekend...................and it p***ed down with rain virtually all day.

At Kikonai there wan't much around except for a few hirundines skimming over the river in the rain. Mainly Asian House Martin and Barn Swallow but the flock contained 3 Red Rumped Swallows which were very tricky to get any shots of with my decrepit old lens in the terrible weather. These were all I could manage.

We headed over to Onuma but mnothing here except a few common birds in the rain.

Back nearer home the Black Winged Stilt from last week had found a friend.

I think they are both males so even if they decided to stay the summer up north we won't be hearing the pattering of little stilt feet this summer in Kamiiso...................

It was really dark when I was taking these photos, I hope they stick around and I can get them in better light as they were actually pretty tame today.

A lot of very samey shots, in mitigation this is a fairly exotic bird up here.

I tried to get some feeding shots but it was too dark to get fast shutter speeds.

Not much about today apart from the above 2 species. A pair of Gadwall and a Kingfisher at Kamiiso, several osprey here and there, a few common duck species still present.

I have to work most of tomorrow daytime, it'll probably be sunny.

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Brown Shrike

A really really crappy photo but it is (I think) a female Brown Shrike on the river near my flat this afternoon. I know it isn't brown..........this is the lucionensis subspecies. I have seen the nominate race a couple of times before in Hokkaido but have never photographed it.This is rarer and was a nice find.  It disappeared before I could get a decent shot.

Migration is hotting up but the weather is still cold..............no cherry blossoms out yet. Birds around in Goryokaku park the last few days have included a male Brambling in summer plumage, 2 Olive Backed Pipit, lots of warblers and buntings (all of which were just Japanese Bush Warbler and Black Faced Bunting), a flock of Dusky Thrush which contained 1 Brown Thrush, Kingfisher, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Hawfinch, Common Crossbill, lots of Barn Swallow, Red Cheeked Starling, Japanese White-eye and Common Teal.

I've never photographed Olive Backed Pipit before either.................here's another crappy photo of one.

I have 3 out of the next 4 days off, hopefully we'll get nice weather AND nice birds.

Stuart Hall, Rolf Harris, Ken Barlow? My god, who will be next?


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Things happening.........................

A very springlike day and one of my best days birding for ages...................

We started off at Onuma, not much around in the morning except this Intermediate Egret...............

This isn't so common in Hokkaido and as you can see it is in its breeding plumage, it was in a pond where I usually see Great Egret or Grey Heron. There were also some Mandarin Duck about as well as lots of Dusky Thrush everywhere. Jaapnese Thrush, Black Faced Bunting and Jaapnese Bush Warbler were singing in the forest but it was a little overcast and chilly so we headed up to Yakumo.

There were 4 Bar Tailed Godwit in the river (one in summer plumage) and several Osprey hunting..............

A group of about 10 Great Egret were there too...........

On the north side of the river was this lone Marsh Sandpiper, I couldn't get close enough for a decent shot.

No other waders around except this trio............

Common Redshank. I would barely raise my camera to my eye for them in England (at this distance anyway) but this is only the 2nd time I've seen them in Japan and the first time I've photographed them. They flew off noisily just like they do back home...........

Other stuff at Yakumo included Eastern Marsh Harrier, Whooper Swan, Glaucous Gull, various species of duck including Shoveler, Wryneck and lots of Siberian Stonechat.

Further north at Oshamanbe I found a tame flock of Dunlin in one of the ports. Many were coming into summer plumage................

Also at Oshamanbe were several groups of displaying White Winged Scoter (well offshore) and Glaucous Winged Gull.

We stopped back at Onuma on the way home. There were some noisy and active Black and Grey-headed Woodpeckers but they didn't come close enough for any pictures.

The tame tits and nuthatches did of course.

The day finished at Kamiiso with another Osprey.............

And yesterday's Black Winged Stilt was still present.

A long long day but worth it. Late April to late May is the best time of the year for birds here and it really felt like it kicked off today...............

So the footy season is fizzling out, maybe the last day of the season will have all 20 clubs with nothing to play for. Liverpool and England are slipping into medicrity, thank god for Game Of Thrones and the upcoming Ashes.
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Channel Hopping

A Black Winged Stilt at Kamiiso this morning. This had arrived yesterday with a Common Redshank (a scarce bird in Japan and missing from my Hakodate list). The Redshank wasn't around but the stilt was...............and very shy it was too.

Summer plumage Great Crested Grebes were on the sea as well as various ducks including my first Gadwall of the year.

We then hopped over the Tsugaru Straits on a ferry................a poor man's pelagic.

The main bird to see at this time of the year is Short tailed Shearwater. There were quite a lot of them around (and they've come all the way from the South Pacific) but not as many as I'd been expecting. It was futile trying to get good shots of them. They never came close to the boat and the sea was so choppy 90% of my photos focused on the waves not the birds.

Here are a couple of shots to give you a flavour of the Tsugaru Straits anyway.

There were also a few small flocks of Red Pharalope.................these were also impossible to get a decent shot of.

I saw a couple of lone Red Necked Pharalope but the birding was pretty quiet.

Not as quiet as Oma (the town on the other side of the straits). This is a small economically depressed town on the northern tip of the main island Honshu. It is (was) famous for its tuna fishing fleet but it has to be the dullest most depressing place I've ever been in Japan. Horror of horrors it doesn't even have a convenience store. I had to kill 3 and half hours there and that is 3 and a half hours too long.

There were a few birds about. 3 Whimbrel, a Little Ringed Plover, Common Sandpiper, Grey Tailed Tattler, some Red breasted Merganser, a small flock of Scaup and 3 Brent Goose.

Oma is in the news now because a new nuclear power plant is being built there and it is uncomfortably close to Hakodate. After what happened 2 years ago nobody in Hakodate is happy about that but Oma is so poor the money from the nuclear plant may well keep the town alive. It looks like the cash has already started rolling in. The ferry terminal is shiny and modern (it used to be tin shack) and the port had possibly the nicest public toilet I've used in a long long time. No squatter in sight, heated toilet seat and an ample supply of soft toilet paper.

Let's hope the power plant doesn't get hit by a tsunami then.

The way back was darker and windier but there were more shearwaters................

The Black Winged Stilt was still around when we returned................

And there were lots of Black Headed Gulls. They don't breed in Japan so we usually don't see much of them in summer plumage, so here they are looking strangely exotic............

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Some more white-eyes............

It was dark and drizzly today but I had some spare time so I checked the river again for migrants.

The Japanese White-eyes were still about................

They are a very common resident in most of Japan but here in Hokkaido they are summer visitors and not so numerous, certainly worth pointing the camera at.....................

The Goldcrest were still around too. Lots of Dusky Thrush and also several each of Pale and Japanese Thrush (the latter including a singing male). A very vocal Wryneck was the highlight of the day (but too far away for any pics). The first Red Cheeked Starling of the summer put in an appearance as did several Red Flanked Bluetail, a Japanese Bush Warbler, Bullheaded Shrike, Blue Rock Thrush, Black Faced Bunting, Hawfinch, Swallow and Asian House Martin.

No warblers or flycatchers yet, hopefully they'll start showing at the weekend.


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