A dark Sunday in November

After some snow last night the forest at Onuma was full of birds..............

Winter is coming

2 common winter birds in Kamiiso this afternoon. Very very dark and overcast. Handheld from the car.

A strong wind from Siberia, snow flurries in the air and Glaucous Gulls on the beach. Winter is coming..................

2014 Best of #4

 


 


 

 


Some more of my fave pics from 2014, these were from the summer................

More 7D2 shots

A Black Kite at Yakumo and Nuthatch at Onuma today.................

Sunshine comes back as work returns...............

After having my 2 days off ruined by horrible weather the sunshine came back as I returned to work...............

Luckily I could sneak a couple of hours in at Kamiiso and the American Wigeon was still there..............

New camera and (almost) new bird

My 7D Mark 2 arrived on Saturday. Naturally the weather has been unrelentingly awful ever since....................

2014 Best of #3

Some of my fave shots from late winter through to the end of spring........................

 

Still quiet..............

Some Harlequin Ducks to the east of town this afternoon...............

A short autumnal trip

A Black Legged Kittiwake, one of 7 Gull species at Yakumo this afternoon at end of a short trip away...........

2014 Best of #2

Well another quiet week combined with a heavy cold means no new photos to post so here's some more stuff from earlier in the year............







In late February we went to east Hokkaido...............and I took rather a lot of photographs.

On this day (October 14th).......................

October 14th 2011

A Little Egret on the river near my apartment 3 years ago today.

It was sharing the river with several Grey Heron and Great Egret.

This is not especially common in Hokkaido but I usually see 1 or 2 a year. This one stayed a few weeks and is the only individual of this species I've photographed much. Not as common here as they have become in the UK..............no dramatic northward invasion this side of the Eurasian landmass. Not yet anyway.

2014 Best of #1

Well it's been a very very quiet last 2 or 3 weeks so here are some of my fave shots from early winter 2014, all taken in SW Hokkaido............it seems like a long time ago already..............

A mellow Sunday

On this day (September 29th)...........................

September 29th 2011

A Mongolian Plover in Hakodate 3 years ago. Most of my local wader shots are in Kamiiso and this was a surprise find on a beach where I'd never seen any waders before................plus it was quite late for this species in Hokkaido.

2010 and 2011 were both very good years for waders around Hakodate. 2012 and 2013 were nothing special and 2014 has been dreadful...............

On this day (September 25th).............................

September 25th 2011

A flock of Pacific Golden Plover in the ricefields just outside Hakodate 3 years ago today. I was actually looking for Sharp Tailed Sandpiper in the same area, but I couldn't find any (and I've yet to find any anywhere).

Not a great photo by any means but it did earn me $75 as it was used in an American birding magazine...............

A night away

A Grey Plover on the beach at Oshamanbe today.............

Alone

Another waderless weekend

A very slow weekend again.....................

A lot of beaches but not a lot of birds

Over the last couple of days I spent a lot of time walking up and down beaches all over SW Hokkaido.......................

Default

One of many Red Necked Stints on the beach at Oshamanbe today. An immature I think. This is the 'default' common small wader in autumn. There were several loose skittish flocks strung out along the long beach. I had to use the 1.4 teleconverter and still needed to crop a bit. Other wader species mixed in among the stints included Terek Sandpiper, Mongolian Plover, Grey Tailed Tattler and Sanderling.

Not much else around. The first Glaucous Winged Gull of the 'winter' at Yakumo, a Peregrine carrying prey near our apartment..............

Summer seems to be coming to an end and it was the mildest (or coolest) I have experienced in Japan since I came here in 1999. Apart from one very hot week at the end of July/start of August the temperature has rarely climbed above 25 and we have hardly used our air conditioner at all (in summer we have one attached to the window in my working room). I'm not complaining by the way, I much prefer coolish summers to the usual hot humid ones we usually have to endure in Japan.

So war in Ukraine, religious terror in Iraq/Syria, ebola on the rampage in Africa, horrible sex abuse scandals in Yorkshire, fatal landslides in Japan....................but hey everyone lets cheer up: Man Utd are still as comically bad as last season and we should enjoy it as much as possible.