Autumn staples

Varied Tit at Onuma and Great Egret at Kamiiso, 2 common autumn birds.

Not much around, the weather was awful most of the day (and the mountain tops were draped with my first view of snow this winter). Buff Bellied Pipit at Sawara was the most noteworthy..................

October Harlequins

Every October the Harlequin Ducks return to the coast..............

More peregrines and dunlins............

We were in Yakumo on Sunday and Monday.............

Mellow autumnal Owl

Beautiful autumn weather at Onuma today..............

Amur Falcon

What I thought was a Hobby just outside town this afternoon..................

Mugimaki

A Mugimaki Flycatcher next to the river near my apartment this morning..................

Not a great photo, it was skulking in the shade and was very actively buzzing around.

I've kind of neglected the local river the last couple of years: a combination of my busy schedule on workdays meaning not much time to pop out, the city chopping down most of the trees and bushes along the riverside plus my wife isn't working these days so on my day off we go out further afield in the car.

Mugimakis are scarce passage migrants.............I see them most years but they are never common and always nice to see.

Shame I wasn't carrying the 500 f4, just my old 7D MK1 and battered 100-400L MK1.

4 species of duck, 3 species of heron, some Rustic and Black Faced Bunting, an unidentified thrush and cuckoo species, Bullheaded Shrike, Siberian Stonechat, Asian Brown Flycatcher.............typical autumn birds in Hakodate.

Autumn 2015 begins............

The season and the birds are both changing..............

Some October Dunlin

There was a small flock of Dunlin at Yakumo this morning.............

A bit of a lull

A bit of a quiet fortnight just passed me by....................

A quiet birthday weekend...............

The end of the wader season saw us up at Yakumo and Oshamanbe yesterday, my 47th birthday in fact.............

A rainy Sunday

I have a heavy cold and yesterday was raining all day........................but I mamanged to see a few common waders..................

It was the tail end of a big typhoon that had brought lots of flooding further south.

A few days away............

A Red Necked Stint jogging on the beach and a Sanderling gagging on something............

We went camping near Tomakomai for 3 nights.................

More waders but no photos of them..........

There were a few waders around again at the weekend but poor light on Sunday meant almost all the photos were sent to the recycle bin.

The above Red Necked Stints were at Oshamanbe on Sunday, there were about 40 of them. There were also 10 or so Mongolian Plover with a lone Great Knot whilst at Yakumo there were 6 Eastern Curlew, 1 Bar Tailed Godwit, some Commn Sandpiper and 3 Greenshank. At Sawara on Monday there were more stints as well as 2 Kentish Plover and a Wood Sandpiper.

Black Headed Gulls, Great Egret and Black Necked Grebe have all returned, it has got pleasantly cooler too: autumn is on the way. We saw Oriental Honey Buzzard and Goshawk, the raptors have started moving..................

White Winged Black Tern

Another dark cloudy day saw us up in Yakumo and Oshamanbe looking for waders. We did see quite a few shorebirds but the bird(s) of the day was White Winged Black Tern. 2 juveniles near Yakumo. A lifer no less..................

Finally some waders.............

A dark dreary afternoon in Hakodate..............but finally I could see a few waders. Very very bad light as you can see................................

There were 2 flocks of Red Necked Stints. I don't know why waders have been so thin on the ground this month, until today I'd hardly seen any anywhere despite looking all over the region at likely spots the last couple of weeks.

I did see another birder last week who told me about 2 rarities from earlier in the year. One was a female Canvasback (a bird I've never seen) which was apparently on the river in Kamiiso in summer. I did see what I thought was just a female Pochard there in June..............of course no photos survived (maybe it was just a Pochard that I saw, I did at least check it but perhaps not as thoroughly as i should have).

The other bird he mentioned was a SNOWY OWL!!!!! The bird in question was supposedly briefly seen on the frozen ricefields just outside town in Febraury. S**t.

1.4X=too much

I had a spare afternoon so we checked some of the local beaches for waders. In anticipation of skittish waders I attached the 1.4X teleconverter on my 500mm (to be used with the monopod if we found any shorebirds).

Naturally there was a not a single wader to be found anywhere. I didn't bother taking the 1.4X teleconverter off.

This Osprey was feeding on the beach in Moheji though. Right next to the main road, it stayed for about 10 seconds as I fired off some handheld shots from the window.

700mm handheld..............out of a window on a busy road with a panicking wife in the driver's seat worrying about that big truck right behind us. And no time to change settings.

They turned out better than I expected but would have been much better at 500 (where handholding is perfectly doable). Very slightly cropped for composition.

Not much else...............an Oriental Honey Buzzard flew over near the Osprey site but that's about it.

A long hot drive

A long hot drive around SW Hokkaido looking for passage waders on the west coast revealed.................1 Pacific Golden Plover. And 1 Little Ringed Plover/2 Common Sandpiper (which are summer breeders).

This hot tired looking Peregrine was near Kaminokuni and was the only decent photo of the day. Lots of distant Ospreys, a few flocks of Japanese Green Pigeon here and there, some Pacific Swifts hawking over the capes  but not much else around............

On this day (August 11th)...........................

August 11th 2013.

A Black Faced Spoonbill at Kamiiso 2 years ago today.

This is a rare east Asian endemic with less than 3000 individuals in the wild. They can be seen in south Japan, Hong Kong and various other locales but are pretty rare this far north. I've also seen one at Yakumo.

This one was present  about a week and on one of the days it was feeding on the beach and i could get reasonably close to it.

The first waders arrive............

The first waders have appeared on the local beaches....................

Osprey feeding time

 An Osprey family this morning..........................