s**t it's cold...........

A crappy picture but at least it gives you an idea of the weather this afternoon as I stepped out of my flat for a very short walk. Yesterday was freezing cold and when I woke up this morning everything was white. Almost no birds about except for the common resident species. What usually happens is a day or 2 after the first snow there is an influx of birds moving south (Hakodate is their last stop before sunny Honshu). Sometimes just common stuff like Grey Starling, sometimes interesting stuff like Crossbill or Whites Thrush can be seen in the city parks.



We went to Onuma yesterday. Exactly the same birds a few days ago basically but I decided to concentrate on Marsh Tits instead of Nuthatches this time.





Lots of Goosander on the lake, a lone Great White Egret, flocks of Dusky Thrush and the other regular woodland stuff were around. Our visit was cut short because of my wife's shoes. Or lack of. She always removes her shoes to drive (don't ask me why) and this time she forgot to put them in the car after she took them off. She didn't notice until we were at Onuma preparing to get out and go for a walk. Just time to feed the Nuthatches and off home we went to find the shoes unmolested in our flat's parking space.



We ended up in Kamiso just before sunset and it was now very very cold with a biting wind blowing from the northwest. A few Scaup on the sea and this adult Glaucous Winged Gull braving the wind were the only noteworthy birds.



Errr............Israel won. I wasn't expecting that. Maybe next spring's road trip may not have to be arranged in the middle of June after all. But I'm not even thinking about that until after Wednesday.

a day on my local patch

I spent a rather cold Friday looking on the river near my flat and then finished the day over at Kamiso (where the above Scaup was hanging around in the fishing harbour just before sunset).



Only 1 Night Heron left now. Also on the river were Kingfisher, Brown Dipper, Grey Heron, 5 species of Duck including a lone Wigeon, Daurian Redstart and lots of Great Tit. In the local park a couple of Little Grebe were skulking in the corner of the moat and a Great Spotted Woodpecker was high up in the trees.

Hakodate's ex-mayor's 'legacy' is a huge multi million dollar white elephant project slap bang in the middle of the park. The park is the remains of a historical fort and the bufoonish ex-mayor decided to build some 'cultural attractions' in the previously pleasant park to boost tourism (or more likely line his pockets with construction bribes). 2 years and counting and it's nowhere near finished. Idiot. Rumours are we'll have to pay to even enter tha park in the future. F#*k that.

Bird of the day was this Thayer's Gull which posed nicely whilst fishing allowing me to check the wing pattern.









At Kamiso there were Red Necked, Great Crested and Black Necked Grebes offshore as well as 10 species of Duck and 6 species of Gull. I scanned offshore until sunset but no Albatross today.

We're planning a round Hokkaido road trip next year. June in fact. There was something else on at that exact same time that would have made me alter such plans but now it looks like I won't have to bother. Unless something amazing happens in tel Aviv tomorrow. If so the road trip will be in May.

Winter came. And a new lens too.

Winter 2007/8 came last night to SW Hokkaido. Snow flurries were in the air and the tops of the hills were white and frosty.



That was the only blue sky in the last week. Rain and sleet then snow. We spent last night at Lake Toya, a hot spring resort 2 or 3 hours drive from Hakodate. We stopped at Yakumo en route. Still only a few Eagles and none of them posing for photos. I did see 1 new bird though. Crested Kingfisher on the river. I only saw it for about 5 seconds. A big pale bird flashing in front of me. I got my binoculars on it, it dived into the river and flew off downstream. Other stuff on the way included Whooper Swan, Great White Egret, lots of Gulls of 7 species with the brilliant white second winter Glaucous Gull being the easiest to identify from a speeding car.



Lots of Black Necked Grebe on the lake were the main birds of interest at Toya. The hotel was the usual hot-spring type. OK room, edible food and a free spa. I have a new lens, the Canon 70-300 IS. I didn't really have much chance to try it out until I got back towards Hakodate. The Scaup at the top of this entry were in 1 of the fishing harbours that proliferate along the coastline here and back at Onuma the cold weather meant the Nuthatches and Marsh Tits were looking for food and very tame again.







The lens is sharper and the IS means I can use much slower shutter speeds (though of course this is no help if the birds are active) and get acceptable shots in gloomy light like this afternoon. This will be my last optical purchase for a while.................. well until next year's interest free installment plans anyway.



Also around at Onuma were lots and lots of Dusky Thrush and Oriental Turtle Dove feeding on all the berries, some Treecreepers and a Goldcrest that buzzed around my head and perched on my hat but didn't stay still enough for a photo.

The nasty weather meant absolutely no shots from Toya so here's a trusty one of Mt Komagadake at Onuma in a rare break in the clouds.



Nothing much in Hakodate since my last entry.......... the Night Herons were still around a few days ago when I last checked and a Brown Dipper has been making daily appearances on the river near my flat.

The weekend should see England put out of their misery by Russia in Israel. Of course I hope we squirm through but I'm assuming we won't. The last time we didn't make a final was the World Cup in 1994. I can remember watching that game against Holland in Rotterdam on my portable TV in my crappy flat in Finsbury Park. Dodgy home favouring ref that night the same as in Moscow (yes I know England have had dodgy decisions go in their favour too but this isn't the time for such level headedness). And then that game in San Marino while Holland were getting the win they needed in Poland. Awful night and now it's happening again. Sometimes I wish I was from a small country that never qualifies for anything. Something like the Faroes or Malta maybe. Then I could just relax, enjoy the games and not care who was playing and never agonising over my country not being there in the finals.

If Israel win I'll convert to Judaism. Perhaps.

After the rare Crane last week there were some more rare birds around Hakodate. If you check out Sato's blog linked on the right you can see pictures of Laysan Albatross with Mt Hakodate in the background. Taken from the short distance ferry from Hakodate to the top of Honshu. Apparently there were FIFTY of them. It's only a 1 hour ride........ and he also got South Polar Skua. Plus a Whiskered Tern alighted on the boat! If I was a twitcher I'd be gutted by the Crane/Albatrosses............. but I'm not a twitcher so it doesn't hurt. Well only a little bit.

I downloaded all the John Peel festive 50's from 1976-2004 last week and put some tracks on my ipod. I enjoyed the Black Keys, old New order and Joy Division stuff, the White Stripes and an old fave of mine, Loop. I'd forgotten what a turgid load of crap the Smiths were (none of their songs made it onto the ipod). And all that sensitive indie-rock like the Wedding Present sounds crappy now. 'Preposterous tales' by I, Ludicrous made me laugh though. That song had slipped out of my memory banks long ago.


Around November 15 down the years:

1985 (Nov 16). A Little Owl near my parent's house plus 16 Whooper Swans as a flyover.

1994 (all November) Cooktown Australia. I was working in north Queensland in the somewhat remote backwater located at the site where Cook first made landfall. What a weird 5 or 6 weeks I had there. I was painting the exterior of the Motor Inn. I had no experience of painting and decorating and was hired on a whim by the new owner of the Motel after we'd got drunk and stoned one night.

Cooktown is an odd place. Only 3 pubs. My favourite was the West Coast. Friday nights were wild........ the aborignes from the nearby reservation poured into town to spend their dole money on booze. They arrived Thursday and were gone Saturday every week without fail. I remember line fishing off the pier watching tropical storms in the distance and hiring small boats to go off into the mangroves. One time we saw a huge saltwater Crocodile sunning itself on the bank. Every evening thousands of flying foxes flapped over the hotel going god only knows where. Mango trees were everywhere and the aggressive green ants that lived in them were the bane of my life. Swarming over my sandfly decimated legs whilst I was atop a rickety ladder in the tropical heat.

There were some seriously odd people in Cooktown, People on the run from the law, complete social misfits, alcoholics, druggies, hippies, rednecks. I liked it. The person I was painting the hotel with had run away from home (he was about 18) with a suitcase containing a change of clothes, a pump action shotgun and a rifle. He'd been refused entry into the Australian army for reasons he refused to elaborate on. There was also an ex sailor with a posh accent who was named Cook. Captain Cook. Honestly I'm not making this up. He was over 60 and mentally ill and had run off from his young Asian trophy wife, stopped taking his medication and was drinking very heavily and shacked up with a toothless old aborignal hag in the room directly below mine. His family eventually came and picked him up.

I drank a lot of VB and smoked a lot of dope whilst watching England get thrashed in that year's ashes series. Despite the cricket it was one of the happiest times of my life. Birds? Lots of them. Off the top of my head I can recall lots of waders in the mangroves (actually the same ones I see on passage in Hokkaido...............probably even the same birds or their descendants-Grey tailed Tattler, Eastern Curlew for example), the noisy Pheasant Coucal hiding near the pool, White Bellied Sea eagles and Brahiminy kites always overhead, Crested Tern, mangrove kingfisher, Torresian Imperial Dove, Mangrove Kingfisher, the Rufous owl swooping around the pier at night and lots and lots of other stuff.

1995 (Nov 11/12) Ribble at Penwortham. Lots of waders including 80 Dunlin and a single Golden Plover. And a Peregrine.

1998 (mid November) I was in Varanasi India. If i thought Cooktown was weird it had nothing on Varanasi. I travelled across the border from Nepal to India and all the worst cliches of travelling in India happened to me. I got ripped off by the bus driver's heavy mob, got sick and in fact lost my voice (a nasty case of laryngitis which had started whilst I was trekking in Nepal) and arrived in Varanasi at dawn and didn't get to the hotel i wanted to because of some bullshit from the taxi driver that I couldn't be arsed dealing with in my fragile sate. Varansi was a pretty interesting place if you could ignore the people trying to con money out of you and the stupid Euro-hippies that infested every cheap hotel like bedbugs. I hired a boat and went out on the Ganges at sunrise. Here's a crappy scanned photo from that morning 9 years ago. The beautiful early morning light, cremations, riverside temples, people bathing in the filth of the river. An extraordinary place.




I saw the biggest cockroach I've ever seen in my hotel room and the bastard could fly too. Ever seen David Kronenburg's "The Naked Lunch"? That's what this monster reminded me of. The hotel staff were some of the shadiest people I'd ever met. Still sold me some weed mind. Egyptian Vulture, Rose ringed Parakeet, Red Whiskered Bulbul and House Swift are the only bird entries from that time in my birding logbook.

2001 (Nov 17). Yakumo. Lots more Eagles than there were today.

2005 (Nov 16). Also at Yakumo with Eagle numbers similar to today (ie less than 10). Also 9 Great White Egret and the usual Gulls and Ducks.

2006 (Nov 12) Onuma. After a lots of looking I got my first (semi) local Black Woodpecker. Seen loads of them there since of course. 1 year ago today (the 15th) we were at Yakumo yet again with about 20 Eagles (with 8 Stellers) and 13 Egrets this time.

Nice weather for Harlequin Ducks

I finally got some semi decent shots of Harlequin Ducks (in my 3rd winter of trying). This male was one of a group of 20 or so near Menagwa. I even had to clamber over slippery rocks in a rare display of athleticism. The background is not so nice.......these tetrapods are everywhere in coastal Japan. 'Defence' against typhoons and tsunamis apparently.

The duck I got closest to seemed to be missing 1 wing. I hope this was just because the bird was in mid-moult.



We were in Menagwa looking for an extremely rare bird. A Siberian White Crane. A friend of my wife's contacted here to say she'd seen a picture in the local paper yeasterday of said bird at Menagawa. We'd actually been in Menagawa on Sunday. So we drove over to the place it was seen. Of course the bird was no longer there (we later discovered it had left on Sunday morning whilst I was sleeping off a hangover).

Lots of Salmon (alive, dying and already dead) in the river. Fishermen aren't allowed to catch them within a certain distance of the river mouth so the coastline is dotted with little coves and beaches with men fishing for the salmon.





I even did a bit of digiscoping with my Fujifilm F31. I got this camera a couple of months ago and have been using it as a snap camera. I tried shooting some of the Japanese Cormorants on the tetrapods. Hmmmmm.......



Looks like I'll have to practice a bit more with that then.

The worst ever Eagles photo

We drove up to Yakumo today to check if the Eagles had arrived for the winter. They had. About 8-10 individuals (it should peak at around 60-70 in mid winter). 3 adult Stellers Sea Eagles, 2 adult White Taileds and 2 or 3 immatures. And they were miles away. This one disappeared just as I was getting the camera out of the car.



Hopefully in a month or 2 they'll be as co-operative as this individual was last January.






For more of these Eagle photos please go here


Other stuff I saw whilst looking out for the Eagles included lots of Brown Dipper, a pair of Black Throated Diver offshore and a few of the winter Ducks and Gulls. We finished up at Onuma. Sunsets are easier to shoot than mile high Eagles with crappy lenses.



So 8-0 last night wasn't a bad result.

Common stuff and some Himalayan memories

A Black Kite and Eurasian Jay, both near Hakodate in the last week.

A bit quiet birding wise the last week or so in Hakodate. A lot of the commoner stuff around. Lots of Jays everywhere, flocks of Rustic Buntings, flocks of paridae with Nuthatch, Treecreeper and the common Woodpeckers mixed in, Dusky Thrush and Daurian Redstart newly arrived for the winter, a few Common Buzzard flying south, 10 species of the commoner ducks and 5 species of the commoner Gulls at Kamiso and a few things still flitting around in the bushes proving very difficult to photograph. Like this Red Flanked Bluetail and Japanese Bush Warbler.






Outside town has been equally quiet. A dozen or so Great White Egret at Onuma, a few Harlequin Duck near Menagawa.



And that's about it. I have some photos of maggoty salmon corpses and a few small blurry Treecreepers which I'll leave on my hard drive.

Around November 6 down the years

Not a lot happening in my birding logbook in November.

1998 (1st week Nov). I went trekking in the Anapurna region of Nepal.Here's a crappy scanned pic of a fading photo. It doesn't do the scenery justice.




Sunrise over one of the peaks in the Anapurna sanctuary. It took me 5 days to hike there from Pokhara. I went with a fitness instructor from Amsterdam and a German whose hobby was marathon running. I was overweight and a chain smoker. Still made it to the top. Birds seen on the trek included White Breasted Kingfisher, Egyptian Vulture, Treepie, Yellow Cheeked Tit, Whistling Thrush, Plumbeous Redstart, White capped river Chat, Alpine Chough, Tickells Flycatcher, Robin Accentor, Yellow Billed Blue Magpie, White spotted Fantail, Brown Dipper and lots of Bulbuls, Babblers, warblers and other stuff I couldn't ID. I was always so knackered it was difficult to check every bird.



Naturally I cut a dashing figure on the trails. I forget now how hard it was. Since the trek followed a river valley up over 4000 metres into the mountains it involved constant ups and downs as the trail crossed the main river's tributaries. At any one time either my knees or lungs were at breaking point. The best time was the late afternoon when I was booked into whatever lodge I ended up at, drinking hot tea, eating chapattis with cheese omlettes and smoking dope (which grew everywhere along the trail) before climbing into my sleeping bag before the next day's exhaustion. If only I'd been fitter...........

This was 9 years ago now. I don't know whether the civil war or commercialization has changed the trekking experience much buy I'd love to go back to the Himalaya. This was my second time.............I hope it won't be my last. Chomorong (sp?) was my favourite place on the trail. Amazingly the lodge there had a hot shower and a western bog. One day, one day.

2005 (Nov 8) a male American Wigeon at Kamiso was one of the few rarities I've managed to find myself. Actually it's not that rare but still pretty good for Hakodate.

2006 (Nov 5) again at Kamiso. 3 Great White Egret followed by a White Fronted Goose on the 8th.


So Liverpool have an important game tonight. I hope this doesn't lead to meltdown for the 2007/8 season.

I enjoyed the Arsenal/Man U game on Saturday. Living well away from any having to listem to real life Man U fans I've ceased hating Man Utd. I actually wanted them to win. Worrying.

A LONG day, a mistake and some winter returnees

Just after sunrise we were at Matsumae to check out the large numbers of migrating Brown Eared Bulbuls heading south for the winter. And see them we did. Loads of them.



Several Goshawk were eyeing the Bulbuls. Lots of other common small migrants were on the move. Long tailed Rosefinch and Olive Backed Pipit being two of the more interesting. Heading back to Kikonai the autumn colours were stunning.



Kokonai had some good birds. 4 Great White Egret, more Rosefinch and Rustic Bunting, my first Dusky Thrush of the season, a lone Black Legged Kittiwake and one of those dodgy Herring type Gulls with yellow legs were with the Gull flocks, the usual common Ducks and the Whooper Swans from last month were still present.



An easy photo on an otherwise poor day for my camera. Cutest bird of the day was this Hokkaido race of Long tailed Tit.





Back at Kamiso the first Brent Goose of the winter had returned. And yesterday there were Black Necked and Red Necked Grebes offshore. A crap shot of some flying Brent Goose.





We then headed out to Onuma. maybe because I'd been up so long or maybe because I'm just an idiot I got confused by a raptor en route. It was big, obviously an Eagle. Soaring over a forest, no white tail, rather dark. I thought hold on a minute....isn't that a Golden Eagle? A rarity up here (though I think I may have seen 1 last year in central Hokkaido). I took some crappy pics and posted them on birdforum's ID section. It's a first year White Tailed Eagle. Oh the shame.

By now the brilliant light and autumn colours at Onuma were fantastic-the best I've ever seen.







Not so many birds at Onuma or perhaps I was too knackered to find them. We finished off watching the sunset..........



I need a new fridge. The motor is so loud it gives me a headache. I'm 39 years old and have never bought a fridge. Always in furnished apartments or I've had old ones given to me. Expenditure on a fridge may scupper some of my more ambitious lens purchasing schemes.

Today had a 'the last warm day just before winter' feel about it. Yuki-mushi ( a kind of white midge) were everywhere (and have been for the last week) and these are a sign winter is not far away. I wonder what kind of winter we'll get this year? Last winter was very mild but the previous one was the harshest I've ever experienced. Some of the winter stuff seems to be arriving rather early this year. Hmmmmmm........

Right. 1 beer (only), a bath and off to bed. I'm f#*ked.

Another unoriginal post

Surprise surprise. More Night Heron pictures. They'll be off down south soon anyway (and then I'll be taking lots of winter Nuthatch pictures-my other staple). Only 2 showing on the river today, a subadult and an adult. This was the species that persuaded me to buy the DSLR. So I have to take lots of pics of them you see.







A Brown Dipper was beginning its' winter hols downstream near my flat. Singing too. Quite a few small birds flitting around in the bushes today. Some had to be left unidentified but a few perched out in the open for a few seconds allowing an ID. Daurian Redstarts (the beautiful males), a pair of Goldcrest and this poorly shot female (or immature?) Red Flanked Bluetail were the most interesting.



An absolutely lousy picture I know. Better than Friday at Yunokawa where I didn't get a single decent shot of anything. Lots of Rustic Buntings there and 1 boring to look at female Russet Sparrow was new to my Hakodate list (now at the dizzying heights of 178!). They're very common in summer at nearby Onuma but this ws the first I'd seen in town.

The sport just gets worse. Now not only does it look like the gloomy shadow of England's non qualification for Euro 2008 is hanging over the season but now it looks like Liverpool will be out of the Champions League by the middle of next month. I almost daren't watch the game against Arsenal tonight.

On a brighter note, NOVA, the company I used to (a long time ago now) work for has gone bankrupt. It's even made the BBC's website and the yahoo! front page. Serves them right for being so petty, sneaky and dishonest.

Music on my ipod recently has included 'private press' by DJ Shadow, 'tye-dye' and other tracks by the Tindersticks and various tracks from George Harrison's 'all things must pass' album. I downloaded a Gang of 4 compilation..............they were crap back in the early 80's and it still sounds crap now. Amazing how many crappy contemporary bands sound like them too.

I watched 'Sexy Beast' last week. A pretty good movie in which we get to see Ghandi beat up the main protagonist of 'Scum'. 'A Mighty Wind' is next up........

Struggling a bit to find any pics to post so here's one of our pet Clownfish swimming near some coral.



I got a webcam last week. Talked to my brother on yahoo messenger this morning. It's less than 1 frame per second on yahoo.......so my fat hungover face kept freezing in the most unflattering poses. Hopefully he'll get skype up and running. It's all part of my grand plan to update my 4 year old i-mac. I got more RAM in the summer, a webcam last week, a DVD burner will come next week and I may try to install a copy (ahem) of Tiger next week too. My boring life. I'm talking about computers now.

The wife will be home soon. She works at a local department store so she sometimes gets perishable food freebies at the end of the day. Last night's score included a $25 box of sushi and some tasty asparagus wrapped in pork and deep fried in breadcrumbs (it sound gross but isn't).

So let's see. Liverpool to turn the corner by beating Arsenal tonight. And then win their next 3 CL games thereby squeaking into the knock out stages. Israel to get a result against Russia. Yes that's right. OK. It'll happen.