Waxwings

I had a couple of free hours this afternoon so I took a short walk to check if any waxwings were around. There were. Loads of them.

Some Gyr BIFs, BOTs and BOPs

The Gyrfalcon in flight, on a post and on a tetrapod.

Scratched pine

A Gyrflacon and a male Pine Bunting at Swara this afternoon.

I had a free afternoon and in glorious light we headed out to Sawara.

A weekend in town.................

For various reasons we didn't leave town at the weekend  (among other things we have to clean the apartment as we have visitors soon). Today I took a walk down the river to hang out with the crossbills again...................

Icy roads in town too.........

I had an afternoon off yesterday and headed down the river to look for the big flock of Common Crossbill I'd seen a couple of weeks ago. There were only about 7 or 8 birds this time but I could get fairly close.

Icy roads and BIFs #2

Some more pics from Monday at Yakumo, this time White Tailed Eagles.........these are all adults.

Icy roads and BIFs #1

A Stellers Sea Eagle in Yakumo today. I managed to get some nice BIFs ('Bird in Flight' pictures) although inevitably a lot of them look rather similar. Well nearly identical in fact.

On this day (February 3rd)

February 3rd 2012.

 A first winter Rough Legged Buzzard just outside Hakodate 2 years ago today. There was a big influx of the species that winter, I saw them in 4 different locations but none were as tame as this individual.

And of course I've never seen any since..........



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A quiet Monday in January

Sunday blizzards

Nasty weather hit Hsouth Hokkaido last night. Sleet and blizzards, and temperatures just high enough to turn the snow into slush.

A local walk

I had some free time in the day yesterday so I walked down the local river to the beach.

Dinner on the beach...............and some Pine Buntings.

Some more photos from Monday, this time a little later in the day.

Lunch on the beach

A surprisingly mild day saw us back at the Gyrfalcomn spot yet again and it put on a nice show around the middle of the day.

More of the same.

The usual early 2014 suspects. Stellers Sea Eagle, Ural Owl and Gyrfalcon.

Minus 19 plus 2 Falcons.

I got up at 5am today and it was one of the coldest mornings I can remember for a long long time.........

Some common winter stuff...........

A short visit to Onuma on Tuesday morning saw the usual common tits and nuthatches, a bit of a comedown after the eagles, owls and flacons of the previous week.

A waste of 8400 yen

Some pictures from the last couple of days. Stellers Sea Eagle, Gyrfalcon, Ural Owl and.................Dunlin.

Phoned in eagle

I am staying in a cheap hotel in Yakumo, drinking beer and not much to do except play around with my smartphone. The above pic was converted to a jpeg on my camera and then uploaded to my phone via an OTG cable. God knows how it looks on a real screen........

Sitting around in the snow

The Gyrfalcon was very tame today, just sitting around on a signpost in the snow. There were several other photographers snapping away, it only flew off when a car appeared over the dunes and  pulled up unexpectedly.

2014 starts off with a bang

A Gyrfalcon to the east of Onuma this afternoon. I waited over 5 hours for it to appear in what is one of the coldest bleakest places imaginable.

Actually it's not that bad but it is an exposed place and there was a raging blizzard most of the day and I was stuck in the car. I popped out for intervals but the cold always drove me back to the warmth of the car. There were no birds except the inevitable crows, gulls and kites. Several other birders were around telling us that it had showed well yesterday but had not been sighted today, possibly due to the nasty weather.

I was just about ready to give up but my wife was comfortable taking a nap under 2 down jackets and asked for 10 more minutes. Then the falcon appeared.................

It sat on the snow about 40 meters or so from the car and flew off about 2 minutes later. I got out of the car but the wind was blowing directly into my face, it was very hard to keep the lens steady. The above shot is cropped and was the best I could manage. Hopefully I can go back on a calmer day.

Despite the blizzards the winter is late and mild. Onuma isn't fully frozen yet and ice free patches may remain all winter at this rate......................something I've never seen before. Ural Owl, Black Woodpecker and White Tailed Eagle were here but not much else.

So not a bad start to the year.............this has always been one of my dream birds to see.

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