Swallows, Sunflowers and dead Dragonflies

We drove up to Kuromatsunai again today in the rain. The weather has been lousy the last week or so. Grey skies, muggy humid temperatures, rain, thunder. In keeping with the Grey theme the 3 most interesting birds near my flat this week have been Grey Wagtail, Grey Starling and Grey Heron.

The Barn Swallow chicks must have been born since our last visit.






The parents were very busy and completely ignored me snapping away.








In between the showers back down to Yakumo we saw Goshawk, Great and Little Egret, Black Browed Reed Warbler, Osprey, Little Ringed Plover, Common Sandpiper, Brown Thrush and Common Kingfisher. There were also loads of Pacific Swift heading south all along the coast.

Here's a scene to remind me it is actually summer.






We went to the local festival last Friday. I took lots of photos of random strangers basically. The one below was the best.


A bit different from the Notting Hill Carnival. Hakodate's festival is of course much smaller and is very efficiently organised. Not much spontaneity here. When I first came to Japan I saw a similar summer parade in Iwaki that was fairly impressive if a little militaristic.



I can remember going to Notting Hill Carnival several times in the early 90's. Heavy drinking in the pub beforehand and lots of dope smoking during the actual parade, eardrums assaulted by loud bass heavy music, huge crowds.............god I'd probably hate it now. Once I was so wasted I lay down on the pavement near the Rough Trade shop (is that still there?) as people stepped over me and I thought my head would explode because of the huge speakers on the next block. Amazingly I wasn't robbed. Not that I had anything worth pinching.

I wasn't in as much as a mess as this dragonfly caught in a spider's web. Every August millions of dragonflies suddenly appear. They're everywhere. Red ones. Yellow ones. They don't appear to enjoy sitting atop reeds or flowers posing for photos so this unlucky soon to expire individual was the only shot I could get.



Frustratingly it still isn't clear if the Premier League is going to be on TV or not. I keep getting fobbed off when I call ("we have no information sir.....please check back later" etc etc). A movie I watched last week was 'The Machinist'. I need the same diet as Christian Bale (well for 2 or 3 weeks perhaps).

Butterflies and Part 1 of a Summer Festival

They like their firework displays do the Japanese. Hakodate has several big ones a year and this week is the Minato Matsuri ('port festival'). I snapped these pics from my balcony (the firework display is about 2km away as the crow flies). This was an octopus. I missed the squid one (Hakodate is famous for squid). Still same difference. There's a big parade tomorrow which I'll go to. They do a squid 'dance'. Thousands of local people in formation prancing around like idiots. I'll be an observer only of course. No doubt I'll do a sarcastic post about it at the weekend.






Not much happening on the birding front so I took some more butterfly shots. My cheap DSLR lens has a handy macro feature (though it'd be good to own a real macro lens is far down the priority list of things I want to buy). Dunno which type this one is.






There'll be lots more bugs now the weather has started to warm up. Big fat badass spiders in a week or 2 and some more big moths perhaps.






The finale was pretty nice.






One huge firework display I can remember was Preston Guild in 1992. If you could ignore the cheesy Enyaesque music pumping out from the stage that is. I was pretty stoned I recall. In the pubs they had beer at 1972 prices and a late closing afterwards too. The next one is 2012.

Birds? Nowt. The Shrikes/Martins/Reed Warblers/Starlings are busy with family life. Flocks of Red Cheeked Starlings can be seen most in the evenings going to roost. Not as impressive as the huge Common Starling flocks I used to see at Preston Bus Station mind. Here's a small flock of mainly immature birds. They'll be off to the tropics in 6 or 7 weeks.



So I still don't know if the Premier League will be on TV in Japan this season. C'mon skyperfect. Sort yourselves out.

I watched '300' the other night. What absolute tosh. About the same level as 'Troy'. That guy who was Achilles' trusty sidekick in 'Troy' is the king of Sparta's trusty sidekick in '300'. It's the exact same actor. Lazy casting department.

Around August 2 down the years:

1982 (August ?). Somerset/Dorset. A family holiday down south. We visited Radipole where I got my first ever Kingfisher and Great Crested Grebe. At Poole I got my first ever Rock Pipit.

1983 (August 6-). North Yorkshire. Another family holiday. My first ever Green Woodpecker, Red Grouse and a few common seabirds around Whitby. Dunno why I've never been back to Whitby. Beautiful place.

1984 (August 2). Leighton Moss. This place seems to get pretty good birds these days but not back on this date in 1984. Winchat was the most interesting.

1986 (August 2). Mere Sands Wood. Little Ringed Plover, Cuckoo, Ruddy Duck......not much at Marshside either. Yellow Wagtail. A few days later (the 9th) I went on my first ever successful twitch. Spotted Sandpiper somewhere near Burnley.

1987 (August 2) Seaforth/Frodsham. Lots of Little Gull at Seaforth plus about a dozen or so of the commoner wader species.

2002 (31 July-) Kos Greece. Part of my honeymoon. Didn't do too much birding.The most dramatic thing that happened was I slipped in the shower and cracked my head open. I had to go the primitive hospital in Kos Town to get stitched up. My wife thought they would do a CAT scan. Until she saw the hospital that is. Eleanoras Falcon was seen most nights from the balcony, I also got Red Rumped Swallow, Bee-eater, Audouins and Yellow Legged Gull, lots of wheatears that may have been Isabellines and Corys Shearwater from the ferry to Turkey. Here's a picture of my romantically staring out over the olive groves.



2006 (Hakodate). Osprey and Night Heron on the river near my flat.

Hirundines and Chats

We went back to the road station at Kuramatsunai to take pictures of the (Barn) Swallows on their nests but instead got some Asian House Martin chicks only a few feet away from their hirundine cousins. At least 4 in the tiny nest and they appeared almost full-grown. The parents wouldn't feed them if I stood near the nest so I fired off a few shots and let them be.






They seem to breed earlier than the Swallows who didn't appear to be feeding any young yet.



It was a bit chilly down at Yakumo. Not much around here. A female Eastern Marsh Harrier seen from the car window was the bird of the day and there were the inevitable Ospreys fishing on the river and the Heronry was as busy as ever (no decent place to take photos though). These Stonechats posed fairly nicely for the camera.






We finished the day at Onuma. The Ruddy Kingfishers appear to have moved away from the nest (less photographers around and those that remained were a few hundred yards down the road). I could hear an unfamiliar bird song in the forest. A repeated two phrase song. I checked it when I got back and I think it may have been a Siberian Thrush. I've never seen one before (and the forest is so overgrown I don't think I could have located it even if I'd tried). Actually it's the only relatively 'common' passerine likely to occur in south Hokkaido I've yet to see.

After my problems the other day I ordered a new compact digicam. The Fuji Finepix F31fd. It seems to be rated very highly both as a point and shoot and also for digiscoping. Only 100 quid for camera/spare battery/1GB memory card.

Only 2 weeks until the footie season starts. Skyperfect TV (the satellite station here) haven't confirmed they're showing the Premier League yet! Of course all Celtic games are on (they have a Japanese player)............imagine if they have Scottish football but nothing from England. My god.

Ruddy Kingfishers leave the nest

One of 3 Ruddy Kingfishers to leave the nesthole for the first time this afternoon at Onuma. And they had an audience.



I don't know what all that gear is worth. A lot I guess. My own set-up looked feeble compared to it anyway. We arrived about 11am and I couldn't get a decent spot to stand........there must have been 25 or more photographers there. I had to stand on the other side of the road. Not a vintage day for pictures despite firing off several hundred. Alas my ancient compact digicam doesn't focus quickly enough or shoot enough frames per second for decent pics. These were at the nest.






My wife had slightly better luck using the DSLR with these 2 pics.






Oh for one of those expensive SLR lenses. Or a better more modern faster digicam. The best pics of the day where of one of the youngsters just before they left the nest. A frustrating day.






This bird hung around near the nest whereas its sibling hung around on a branch in the distance.






They were both fed several times by adults but things happened too quickly for my antique gear. Red blurs were all I could get. This was the best I could muster.






If anyone reading this is very rich and wants to make someone really really happy I want one of these.



Well at least a new compact digicam from Santa won't break the bank. I'll put it on the list.

Hot hot hot and the Moon

I was a bit bored tonight so I took some photos of the moon through my scope. 46 pics and they all look the same. Not great but not awful either. Of course I'm in the middle of town too. Hey the moon moves during the 10 seconds timer.

Rather hot the last few days. Birding in town is very predictable. The Bullheaded Shrikes have fledged and here's a youngster.



There seem to be more of these this year. At least 2 separate families in the mile or so stretch on the local river. The Asian House Martins have also fledged. Familiar problems of birds silhouetted against the sky plus the darn things fly so fast.






One thing I've noticed about standing around in summer on the grass is the extraordinary number of ants everywhere. If you stand still for 30 seconds they swarm all over your feet (not nice when you're wearing shorts and sandals). I don't think they actually bite but they must secrete something or other as my feet are still itchy. Here's a Carrion Crow taking advantage of the ants.



My camera lens has a supposed 'macro' function. I've been trying to snap a few photos of bugs and the suchlike. Here's some kind of butterfly. And a bee in a flower.






On the subject of bugs I'll be visting the mossie infested jungle at Onuma trying to get some Ruddy Kingfisher pics over the next few days. The young have hatched. I got some great pictures last year. I got bitten to death getting those shots though.

Not up to too much recently. Watched a bit of Blake's 7 burned onto a CD, followed England v India on the radio, read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, got drunk last night on beer and cheap sake, cooked some fried noodles with garlic sprouts, green peppers and pork, dreamed about purchasing expensive lenses and got depressed about approaching my 39th birthday.

Mothra outside my front door

A very tame Swallow sat atop a drinks vending machine last week. They were nesting in a service station type area about 2 hours north of Hakodate. A couple of great photo opps of Swallows atop nests were wasted as I messed around trying to get decent settings in macro mode.



Another poor attempt at macro photography was this thing.




Dunno what kind of Moth this is but it's been sitting motionless on the walkway in front of my apartment door for the last 24 hours. If I had a decent macro lens and could be bothered setting up the tripod I could have taken a much better picture. But it's only a moth.

Big ba*#ard though.



It was warm and humid today after 2 weeks of grotty weather . Not much bird activity recently. The Shrike families have fledged. The Oriental Great Reed Warblers have stopped singing. We drove to Niseko last week and this was (until today) the only blue sky I'd seen in ages.




Not much of interest at Onuma last week except mosquitoes. And more lotus.



I watched Japan beat Australia in the Asia Cup last night. Eerily reminiscent of England. Out on penalties in the QFs. I also started and finished the new Harry Potter book. Not that I normally read kiddies books of course. It's my wife's anyway. Last week I had a few days off but had a cold plus the weather was lousy so I caught up with some downloaded stuff on my hard drive. League of Gentlemen seasons 2 and 3.

Around July 22 down the years:

1984 (July 21/25) Penwortham. Corn Bunting, Bullfinch, Spotted Flycatcher were among the (then) common stuff around. 1984! Liverpool League and European Champions. England losing 5-0 to the Windies. A lifetime ago.

1987 (July 25) Seaforth. 8 Gull species including my first ever Med and also Little Gull and Kittiwake. Plus Curlew Sandpiper, Black Tailed Godwit and Ruff.

2001 (July 19-) Rishiri Island in north Hokkaido. We climbed the big mountain on the island (it was brutal). Japanese Accentor and Black Woodpecker were the highlights. Lots of strange stuff singing in the forests near our campsite that I now know to be Siberian Blue and/or Japanese Robin. From the ferry there were Short Tailed Shearwater, Fulmar, Rhinoceros Auklet and lots of Red Necked Pharalope.

2002 (July 26) Leighton Moss. First visit to this well known Lancashire spot for many many years. LOADS more birds than I remember. We only went to that small hide near the saltmarsh and there were 10 Avocet as well as Dunlin and Black Tailed Godwit. I can remember going to that hide in my youger days and there being literally nothing to see. A quick look at the huge Gull colony on Walney later on freaked my wife out.

2006 (July 26) Yakumo. Early wader passage included Red Necked stint, Dunlin, Greenshank and Eastern Curlew. Also around were Osprey, a few summering Scaup, White Throated Needletail and the usual summer passerines