Another fine spring day...........

Monday was another beautiful cloudless spring day in south Hokkaido..............

Some more port birds...........

An Asian Rosy Finch from Sunday afternoon..............

A visitor from Russia

There were still a few White-tailed Eagles scattered around north of town.................

Some BIF surprises

It was a beautiful clear spring day in south Hokkaido.....................

Saturday afternoon in Onuma

A Goldcrest in Onuma this afternoon......................

Some more SMIFs

I spent another afternoon with the Smew on Monday.......................

A bit slow.............

Despite a lot of driving around in great weather last weekend the birds were a bit thin on the ground...............

Another one that hadn't left

I was looking for the Ring-necked Duck again on Sunday and although I couldn't relocate it I did find a Baikal Teal.......................

The Smifs

Very sunny weather the last couple of days...................

And a female........

The Bullfinches were more spread out on Friday and not as photogenic as previously..............

Also around were Brambling, Hawfinch and a couple of Redpoll. Still no Crossbills, looks like 2017 may be a crossbill-less year..........

Their work is not complete.......

Well they're still hard at it...........

Some common locals

The common local residents were present in Onuma earlier in the week...........

A couple of common harbour birds

East of Hakodate, Brent Geese and Harlequin Ducks are common winter visitors.............

More harbour stuff...........

The Long-tailed Duck from last week was still in the same harbour.............

A Black Woodpecker

A female Black Woodpecker in Onuma yesterday................

It hadn't left............

We spent the day in Onuma...............

Some Redpolls

We went back to the place where we'd seen the Asian Rosy Finches last week but they had long since disappeared.

A Friday morning walk

I had a spare couple of hours on Friday morning............

On this day (March 4th).....................

March 4th 2014.

A male Crossbill in town 3 years ago today. There were large numbers of this species in March of that year and they already scavenging pinecones on the ground, presumably having eaten most of the ones still on the trees. It allowed for a few nice low angle shooting opportunities........................

Springlike

Very mild weather yesterday saw us head west...................