Some (very) early signs of Spring

I had a bit of spare time yesterday afternoon............

A crappy Monday in February

Absolutely horrible weather today. Heavy wet sticky snow with very poor visibility and terrible driving conditions.

A mild Sunday afternoon

My wife was hungover this morning so we only managed a short trip out west..............

A few small surprises

A male Bullheaded Shrike and an immature Black Crowned Night Heron near my flat this afternoon......

A blue thief

A male Blue Rock Thrush in one of the local fishing ports a couple of days ago................

More parklife

There were some common species in the park yesterday..............

In the park shadows.............

We were in one of the local parks this morning. It was rather dark, the park is full of trees and is difficult to photograph birds sometimes.

This female Sparrowhawk was a nice find, looks like it was eating a Brown-eared Bulbul............................shane about the poor light.

The residents

Some of the local residents at Onuma yesterday afternoon......................

Some hungry Eagles #2

Some more shots from Sunday at Yakumo.................

Some hungry Eagles #1

 The weather was better than expected and we could go up to Yakumo for the first time in 2 weeks..........

Some nasty weather

A close-up of a Blue Rock Thrush this afternoon.............

Out west

The roads were a bit nasty and frozen this morning so we headed west where the sun was shining.................

Another grey Sunday

Awful weather this morning....................

A different bridge.................

As the main bridge was a bit quiet in Yakumo last Sunday we tried the next one, a few hundred metres inland inland............

Some Waxwings appeared............

There was a small flock of Waxwings in town on Thursday afternoon....................

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

January 20th 2014.

The overwintering Gyrfalcon at Sawara 3 years ago today.

It put on a real show this day and was very very tame as it snacked on fish scraps pilfered from the local Black Kites.............

Here's a video from that day............

Not as busy on the bridge................

We were back in Yakumo on Monday...................

On this day (January 18th).......................................

January 18th 2015.

A male Pine Bunting 2 years ago today on the coast near Mori.

This is a scarce but regular winter visitor to south Hokkaido. Small flocks move around the (usually) snowbound  beaches and sand dunes and if you're lucky and in the right place at the right time you might just see them..............

Monochrome weekend

It was a grey and rather overcast weekend..............

Another nice duck...............

After 3 or 4 days of heavy snow and real winter weather at last we headed to Onuma on Sunday to see if the Ring-necked Duck and/or Baikal Teal were still present.

They weren't unfortunately but I did see 3 Falcated Teal.................not as rare as the others but still fairly exotic.