Some seabirds came to town..........................

I was surprised to find quite a few Rhinoceros Auklets close inshore yesterday...............

A Late Spring Trip #6

There were several warbler species at the forest pool.................

A Late Spring Trip #5

Some more pics from earlier in the week.................

A Late Spring Trip #4

We found some Asian House Martins collecting nesting materials.......................

A Late Spring Trip #3

A male Grey Bunting from earlier in the week....................

A Late Spring Trip #2

A Siberian Blue Robin from a couple of days ago..........

A Late Spring Trip #1

We just got back from a 3 day trip.....................

A rainy Sunday

A Peregrine in the driving rain west of town this afternoon.............a crap picture for a crap day.

I guess the farmers need the rain though..............

Not much around. A few straggling wildfowl here and there: 2 Bewicks Swan, a lone Brent Goose, a few Scaup, Wigeon, Goosander and Red-breasted Merganser. A single Grey-tailed Tattler. A lot of Ospreys (non close).

On this day (May 28th)...........

28th May 2015.

An Atlantic Puffin.

2 years ago I was back in England and on a day trip to the Farne Islands. A great (and very easy) place for bird photography, there aren't many places like it in Japan. Teuri Island in Hokkaido may be the nearest offshore island with seabird colonies in Hokkaido but I've never been there. Not yet anyway.

It's over again............

Well the spring migration season for 2017 has just about run its course..............

Just the summer residents showing now on the river near my flat.

A pair of little brown birds.............

A Japanese Bush Warbler on the grasslands near Oshamanbe yesterday.............

A night away in late spring............

We spent Sunday night camping near Oshamanbe................

Some spring waders in the ricefields...........

We managed to find a small number of shorebirds in the padis.............

Some summer plumaged Divers...........

A very warm spring day saw us out west today..................

A Falcated Duck

A drake Falcated Duck was a nice find yesterday near my apartment...........

More Narcissism

Lots of Narcissus Flycatchers again on Monday....................

Another cold misty day in Onuma

Monday's weather was cold and misty again...............

A rainy morning in Onuma

It was raining heavily on Sunday....................

On this day (May 15th)...............

May 15th 2014.

An immature Hooded Crane near Oshamanbe 3 years ago today.

This was a nice find but was not such a big surprise: we'd seen one the previous autumn in Yakumo and presumably this was the same individual. It occurs in large flocks in the deep south of Japan but in Hokkaido it is a bit of a rarity...............

Ashy Minivet

Not a very good photo but it is a bird I've never photographed before. A female Ashy Minivet at Onuma today.............

This is scarce in Hokkaido but a fairly common summer visitor further south in Japan, Only the 3rd time I've seen one and just the 2nd one I've seen in Hokkaido.

After several weeks of very clear weather we had a nasty dark cold windy rainy day, it was bound to happen.