The Ice Warrior

Me playing around with an icicle at Onuma this afternoon. Very cold but amazingly the sun came out today. There were a lot of Woodpeckers around today............



This is probably the best Woodpecker photo I've managed yet. A female Japanese Pygmy Woopecker. This species is the most common, followed by Great Spotted. Also around today was a male Grey Headed (no photo though) and this female White Backed Woodpecker, a species much scarcer than the similar looking Great Spotted (actually I probably overlook a few White Backeds).



No Black Woodpeckers around today. Jay, Varied, Marsh and Great Tits and Nuthatch were as common as ever.





The small flock of Rosy Finch I saw at the start of the month were still present but difficult to get a good shot of, here's the best of a bad bunch.



The lake is frozen solid now and I walked out on the ice a few times today (the ice is under a foot or so of fresh powdery snow). Some oyajis (a disparaging but useful term for 'traditional' Japanese men aged 40 and over) were out on the ice fishing for wakasagi, a small crunchy fish cooked in sweet sake, sugar and soy sauce. This bast*rd completely ruined my shot. Trampling all over the smooth snow and pitching his silly little tent on the ice. Bah.




Of course my wife has to listen to me banging on about oyajis all the time and she reminds me I'll be 40 later this year.

About minus 5 this afternoon, not as cold as a lot of places in the world but still pretty cold for the likes of me.



This winter is actually pretty standard. Last winter was very very mild and the one before was extremely harsh. Last winter I didn't even get my down parka out of the cupboard but it's seen some sterling service already this year. This was a couple of days ago just outside Hakodate.



Here are 2 Buntings I saw on the outskirts of Hakodate last week, a male Yellow Throated and a male Rustic Bunting (I think).





Not so much else about recently, I've just about shook off the cold I had last week. I watched Liverpool fall further behind last night but what about Newcastle? I went to bed after the 3rd goal and woke up this morning and saw that Man U had scored another 3! It must be hard being a Newcastle fan. I can remember when I was a student there in the late 80's and all the 'sack the board' chants. I only went to see them at St James once, a 2-2 draw against Liverpool. Liverpool were drawing against crappy northeastern teams then too. I even think Newcastle were relegated that season. Just to show how long ago it was some of the Geordie fans were making monkey noise whenever John Barnes touched the ball. Pathetic, especially as Newcastle had a black player of their own. Anybody remember Mirandinha? Didn't think so.

Big support, loyal fans, occasional flashes of brilliance amongst the mediocrity, used to be quite good a long long time ago, modern delusions of grandeur, an impossible job for a manager..........England are The Newcastle of international football.

Around January 13 down the years:

1987 (Jan 10) A male Red Crested Pochard at Seaforth, one week later on the 17th we went to Rivington Reservoir and saw Red Necked Grebe, Smew and Red Throated Diver (all 3 rare enough to twitch then, all 3 common in Hokkaido now).

1992 (mid Jan) a 2 week holiday to Portagul, I stayed with a friend in Porto. Winter in northern Portagul seemed a little grey and miserable.............I went to Spain a couple of years later and much preferred it. We did a bit of travelling around (including Lisbon) but it was basically 2 weeks of heavy drinking and I have almost no memories of the whole fortnight except lying on my friend's couch waiting for him to finish work so we could go out drinking again. Sad but true. He was an English teacher ironically enough. Birds? Black Redstart and Cattle Egret were the only 2 deemed noteworthy enough for my old logbook. The only wildlife I really recall clearly where the thousands of huge rats swimming around in the river in Porto. Still, very cheap place to get drunk and smoke cigs in........

1995 (most of Jan) a 3 week trip to Indonesia, sandwiched between Australia and Thailand.



My first ever experience of Asia. I visited Bali and Lombok. Bali was a shi*hole, I can't for the life of me understand why it is so popular (or at least the bit of Bali I saw first, Kuta). It didn't help it was the rainy season. The hawkers in Bali were the pushiest I've ever seen and the beach was covered with thousands and thousands of dead rotting fish. Nobody ever explained to me why this was so. Pollution? Seasonal changes in ocean currents? Fish 'flu?

Lombok was much much nicer, I stayed on one of the Gili islands for a week or so. It was my first 'tropical paradise' type experience and I loved it. My abiding memory is eating one of those 'special' mushroom omlettes and retreating back to my beach bungalow. There was a huge storm that night but I was unaware as I was busy trying to catch lizards in my room. I gave up and lay under the mosquito net listening to 'Second Coming' by the Stone Roses over and over again until the 'shrooms wore off, it's an album which I still have some fondness for. The next morning I woke up and saw the devastation wrought by the storm.........including the corpses of several huge monitor lizards presumably drowned out at sea. That was kind of weird as I'd been trying to catch their tiny Gecko kin the night before.

Birds? I didn't have a decent fieldguide but on the island I saw Brown Booby, Pacific Reef Egret, a few common waders including Malaysian Sandplover and Crested Tern. Elsewhere on Bali I got Javan Kingfisher, Scarlet Headed Flowepecker, Javan Pond Heron, lots of unidentified Frigatebirds, Brahiminy Kite, Spotted Necked Dove, Rufous Backed Shrike, Red Rumped Swallow and lots of unidentifiable stuff.

2003 (12 Jan) White tailed Eagle was a good flyover bird in Hakodate, a few days later I had my first ever Black Throated Diver too.


So hopefully there'll be some Waxwings passing through Hakodate soon. I booked my ticket to England finally (March 27, can't wait). I watched 'Control' last week, kind of interesting but boy was it depressing............think I'll watch 'Waiting for Guffman' next to cheer myself up.

I feel like sh*t

Very very cold gloomy weather the last 4 or 5 days................plus I caught a cold and feel like crap.

I have discoverred a new place for birds though, a little river tucked away in the countryside just outside Hakodate. It's basically where I was looking for the Rough Legged Buzzard (which I never did get to see). Lots of raptors...........Merlin, White Tailed Eagle, Peregrine, Goshawk, Sparrowhawk, Common Buzzard and the ubiquitous Black Kite. But no Roughlegged. Lots of snow the past week, I've been wading through deep snow a lot and the countryside looks like that movie 'Fargo'.

Today there was a flock of paridae which included a bird I've been trying to get a shot of a lot recently but they are so fidgety. Long Tailed Tit. Lots of photos of birds with branches in the way today.



Also in the flock were Varied Tit, Coal Tit, Great Tit, Treecreeper, Goldcrest and Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker, which looked a bit odd climbing around in the reeds. This was taken in a one hour break in the snow.




The small river held Brown Dipper, Black Backed and Japanese Wagtail and 3 Great White Egrets flew overhead presumably flying south as quickly as possible. We went there on Sunday too (just as my cold was kicking in) and saw Eurasian Jay and Yellow Throated Bunting amongst other stuff.







Didn't really look on the sea at all today..............last week most of the usual stuff was around including thousands and thousands of Red Breasted Merganser offshore. We had a quick look at the fishing harbour in Kamiso today, lots of retirement age Japanese men fishing for chika, a kind of small fish. This attracted quite a few Gulls and lots of Scaup.





One of the annoying things about Japan is medicne, especially simple stuff to relieve the symptoms of a cold. Basically, over the counter stuff isn't strong enough to medicate a newborn white mouse in a western lab. To get stuff that might actually work you have to go to a doctor and pay through the teeth (and pay for all the extra crap like blood tests) if you don't have local health insurance. You can't just pop down to Boots and get some flu strength decongestant, oh no. That would mean the doctors make less money wouldn't it?

Here's a couple of crappy record shots of Brown Dipper and a Black Woodpecker just before sunset at Onuma a few days ago (co-incidentally when I noticed I had a cold).





Black Woodpecker is a target bird photo-wise this year, I've located a hole where I think a female roosts. Oh great........more standing around in the snow.

A quiet week for sport, I watched Ipswich v Portsmouth in the FA Cup on my ancient PC via sopcast at the weekend. I can't believe David James is still playing. I saw Spurs play Liverpool at White Hart Lane in the early 90's and saw him walking down the Seven Sisters Road, sports bag over his shoulder after the game, with 2 or 3 friends presumably off for a night out in London. I think he must have been a sub that day. Maybe.

I hope the weather and my cold improve soon.

Stellers Sea Eagles

An adult Stellers Sea Eagle at Yakumo this afternoon. These photos were taken from the roadside along the Yurappu River where every year Stellers and White Tailed Eagles spend the winter. And it is indeed a wintry place.......



The Eagles perch on riverside trees (or on rocks sometimes) and occasionally flap down to pick up a rotting Salmon carcass. Actually I was surprised to see quite a few live Salmon still swimming around in the shallows.

It can be rather difficult to get a good shot of the Eagles, simply because they fly off as soon as you get out of the car. There aren't many safe places to stop either as snow ploughs dump snow at the side of the road and also the icy road is full of bends and curves full of aggressive Japanese drivers. Well they seem aggressive when you're trying to go slowly checking for Eagles and they're right up your a*se.





We got lucky with this bird. I had about 2 minutes to fire off some shots with the car window open. The engine was running, the light was crap, it was snowing slightly and my wife was drumming her fingers on the steering wheel trying to get me to hurry up. Canon EF 100-400L IS USM I salute you.

I did of course get out of the car to try and get some flight shots but these weren't so successful. This was the best of a bad bunch. A White Tailed Eagle.



Of course blue sky would have helped. The perched Eagle pictures above needed almost no photoshopping at all apart from resizing for the web. This photo hasn't been photoshopped either............unfortunately Photoshop CS3 doesn't have an defatty filter.





We stopped at Onuma both ways to try and get a decent pic of the Ural Owl but it was nowhere to be found. Hope we didn't spook it yesterday...it was very confiding last year. The forest was again full of birds even if Onuma was even more wintry than Yakumo. 4 species of Woodpecker (including Black and Greyheaded), flocks of Brambling and Rosy Finch (the latter seems to be more common than usual this winter) and several Jay as well as the usual c common stuff. In Onuma village there was a very restless flock of about 30 or 40 Japanese Waxwing........here's a crappy heavily cropped record shot.



Hopefully there will soon be some flocks of Waxwing in Hakodate and I can get some decent pics.

We had a brief look at the flock of tame Whooper Swans which seems to be growing daily...........some appeared to be displaying.





If the Swans were full of New Year joy the small group of Geese looked as miserable as a bird can possibly look.



There was another Bean Goose somewhere but 2 of the 4 Whitefronts seem to have headed south to escape the cold.

Just before going out this morning I watched Liverpool v Wigan. A toothless display by Liverpool..........I mean c'mon.........TITUS BRAMBLE.

So gently back to work tomorrow...............and my diet is finally underway. Soba noodles for lunch, diet soup for dinner. And no beer anymore (except on Saturday nights and other 'special' occasions). Roll on Saturday night then.

New Year in Hokkaido

A wintry new year in these here parts.



A Ural Owl at Onuma this afternoon. This is presumably the same Owl I photographed last winter. My wife found it today in the same hole as last year. She had forgotten her cellphone so she rushed back to find me and just as i got to the right tree the Owl, which had been sitting in full view, dived back into its' hole as the exact moment I raised my camera some snow fell off an overhanging branch onto the Owl's head. It emerged about an hour later, flying off before I could get a shot. The above pic was the best i could manage after I relocated it a few minutes later. For a digiscoped shot of the same Owl in the same hole last year please click here.







Strange weather so far in 2008. A lots of blizzards and snow, some hail and even some brilliant sunshine. The feeding 'log' in Onuma is covered in snow. All the usual suspects were there, and despite the heavy snow, the forest was full of birds.In addition to the usual species we heard a distant Black Woodpecker and saw a small group of a dozen or so Hawfinch. None of those wanted to be photographed so here are some predictable shots of Marsh Tit and Nuthatch.







En route to Onuma both days we stopped in Ono in a vain attempt to see the Rough Legged Buzzard (which has probably move on by now anyway). Lots of Common Buzzard, a Merlin, a few Yellow Throated Bunting, a flock of 200 or so Redpoll and Siskin and a lone male Bull Headed Shrike. Here's a pic of a Black Backed Wagtail in Ono yesterday.



This morning we also had a look at the Kamiso area. Lots of stuff on the sea, 4 species of Grebe, huge flocks of Red Breasted Merganser, smaller numbers of displaying Black Scoter, another 9 or 10 species of Duck, Whooper Swan, 7 species of Gull including several Glaucous and Glaucous Winged plus Japanese Wagtail and lots of Dusky Thrush. Here are some crappy pics of a male Black Scoter flying off as I got out of the car.







Around January 2 down the Years:

1984 (1st week of January). In my teenage years I always went birding a lot in early January, something about year lists I guess. On the 1st I was in Penwortham with a flock of 100 Golden Plover on the fields down Howick Cross Lane being the highlight. They seemed to decline and last time I was home at New Year (1998/9 and 2004/5) they were nowhere to be seen. The 2nd I went to Marshside and got the usual Twite, waders and wildfowl, on the 4th was at Leighton Moss (nothing special here) and on the 7th me and some friends had a big twitch for Franklins Gull and Great Northern Diver in south Lancs (we missed both and in fact I've never seen either species in my life to date). We did get Little Gull at Seaforth.........and in amongst the Gulls was an odd one.........from my 'notes' at the time........."Common Gull size, slate grey body, paler wings with black tips, stocky with yellow bill".

1985 (1st week Jan). A similarly hectic week........my only ever Pintail at Penwortham was among 48 species on the first 2 days on my old local patch, the usual stuff at Marshside on the 3rd and Purple Sandpiper and Snow Bunting at Fleetwood on the 5th.


1986 (Jan 6). I must have had some kind of social life by this age as the only birding all week was a visit to Martinmere. Short Eared Owl, Hen Harrier and some Barnacle Geese (which I think were geniunely wild) were the pick of the birds.

1987 (Jan 2). Fleetwood again...............and by now my friend could drive. Glaucous Gull, Purple Sandpiper, Snow Bunting and lots of Common Eider offshore were the highlights.

1988 (Jan 4). A jaunt around north Mersyside, Ringed Billed Gull and Little Gull at Seaforth but we dipped on the Ross' Gull (although I did briefly get my face on the local news that night).

1994 (Jan 2). Me and 2 friends flew to Granada in southern Spain for a week. It was a great holiday that I look back on with a lot of fondness. There were 3 of us who had been friends at University and had all ended up living in London. None of us even live in England anymore (as far as I know, I've lost contact with one and have only seen the other one a 2 or 3 times in the last 10 years) and I suppose I may never see them again which is kind of sad. Anyway...........we drove around Andalucia, drank San Miguel and drank cheap wine, smoked a lot of hash, saw some Moorish palaces (well, one), hung out with some interesting people. Birds? It wasn't a birding trip at all but I did managed my first ever Hoopoe, Griffon Vulture and Crag Martin and also Crested Lark, Little Owl, Black Redstart and Serin. Here's a pic of me and one of the aforementioned friends. Happy happy times.



2004 (1st week Jan) Hakodate. Some good local stuff included Goshawk, Long Billed Plover and White Tailed Eagle.

2006 (Jan 2) my first ever day trying to get pictures of birds. A bitterly cold wintry day in Yakumo..........here's my very feeble first attempt at Stellers Sea Eagle. This was the coldest winter I've ever experienced........



I have yet to master bird photography but at least I've improved in the last 2 years. This was with my Pentax scope, a 4mp Nikon compact, a crappy zoom eyepiece from ebay and a crappier than crap Baader adapter. Still, at least you can tell what it is.

So that was 2007

So 2007 has come to an end. Not a terribly eventful year in my life. I.........errrrr.......let me think........didn't really do much at all.

We bought a tent and had a couple of camping trips (and next summer we'll do a lot more hopefully). And oh yeah I bought a new camera. We also bought a pet Clownfish and a small saltwater tank which now seems to have lots of creepy things living under the rocks and coral.

Here are my 10 favourite photos from the year.





I started off the year digiscoping. A Nikon 4200 Coolpix attached to a 65mm Pentax Scope with a 12mm eyepiece. Too slow for most stuff but not so bad for birds that stay in the same place for a while. Like this Stellers Sea Eagle at Yakumo. I'm quite proud of this picture, hopefully next week I can get some more. This is undoubtedly the best bird of the region. I saw my first one last century. New Years Eve 1999 to be exact, from the bus on the way to Sapporo before a marathon drinking session (for those that know and are impressed by such things I had THREE nomihodais that night).



This Peregrine Falcon was at Cape Kiritappu in east Hokkaido in late May. The nicest new place I visted in 2007. This was with my new camera, the Canon EOS 400D with a crappy Sigma 70-300 DG lens. I'd had the camera a couple of monmths and had taken a few ok shots and by May I realised I couldn't really use it above 250mm or with an aperture bigger than F8. Good light helps too. This trip to East Hokkaido was cut short when my wife tripped up over the tent and broke her ankle..........she can laugh about it now at least.



My digiscoping gear staged a comeback in June with the Ruddy Kingfishers at Onuma. They were very co-operative and sat still for 5 or so minutes within 20 metres, ideal for my set-up. In August we went back to photograph the young leaving the nest but the murky light in the overgrown forest was too much for my ancient compact digicam. I upgraded to a Finepix F31FD, which I haven't really used for digiscoping yet. Hopefully they'll be back next summmer.



There was an influx of Red Necked Stint at the end of August, they were everywhere with a flock of 30 or so at Kamiso. This was my fave shot. My wife took a better one I'm sorry to say which I'm too proud to post. This was with the Sigma cheapie but luckily the Stints were fairly tame and I could get within 5 or 6 metres.



Black Crowned Night Herons and Nuthatches were the most photographed species of the year. Lots of Night Herons on the local river in autumn. Annoyingly there was always a branch or reed in the way when they were just sitting meekly minding their own business but I was pleased with this flight shot. Even with the slow AF of the Sigma.............though the high shutter speed helped of course. This (late October) was the time I stared shooting exclusively in RAW.



It took me ages to get a decent Harlequin Duck picture. This male near Menagawa in early November was my first 'keeper' of this species. I had to clamber over slippery rocks but the one winged moulting bird just stayed on its' tetrapod ignoring me.



In late November the first snow came (and it was much much colder than now for some reason). I also ditched my Sigma and got a Canon 70-300 IS lens. Much better than the Sigma, the IS is a godsend and the optics are much sharper right up to 300mm. This Hawfinch was also very photogenic.





Life is either feast or famine. A few days after getting the new lens I met Franck, a French expat living 3 hours drive from Hakodate. Astonishingly he lent me the Canon 100-400 IS lens until next March (he uses the serious stuff, a 500mm F4 monster of a lens). This Varied Tit and Nuthatch were at the usual place in Onuma in late November. Perfect light helped with these shots................it's a great lens.



This Kingfisher was on the river near my flat in early December. Very co-operative, this was probably the best shot. I usually use the 70-300 lens as my walkabout lens but on this day I had the 100-400. The Kingfisher stayed for about 10 days and then bu**ered off somewhere else.

So what else happened in 2007? A shi**y year for sport. England flopped badly again in the footie and cricket. I'm not really a Rugby fan and can't take solace in that (and anyway they lost the final). Liverpool? Still a great cup side but after watching Arsenal demolish Everton the other night (and the Man City draw last night) we aren't going to catch them or Man U this season in the league that's for sure. Regular readers to this blog (all 10 or 11 of you) may recall my deep depression after the England v Croatia game. The pain decreases but the pessimism about the immediate future of English football remains (both club and international). It has sold its' soul. Still, only a game eh?

2008...........Capello will be interesting and should drag England back to their rightful place as mediocre underacheivers who can't take penalties under pressure in knockout games (as opposed to outright failures who don't even reach knock-outs at the moment). Rafa should get rid of Kewell and Kuyt and buy another striker and central defender and hope Man U/Arsenal both somehow implode in the New Year. Flintoff will hopefully be back next summer and have a couple of series to rebuild his form before heroically reclaiming the Ashes in 2009.

Birding? I didn't keep a year list this year. I did see a few new birds though. Daurian Jackdaw, Little Cuckoo, Broad Billed Sandpiper, Mugamaki Flycatcher, Crested (or is it Pied?) Kingfisher were my only lifers but I did add quite a few to my Japanese/Hokkaido/Hakodate lists., for example Long Tailed Duck and several common waders made it to my Japanese list, Japanese Accentor and Russet Sparrow to my local list.

I actually found that I'm as interested in taking pictures of common birds as I am in seeing new ones these days. I don't have the concebntration and fanatical attention to detail to make me a really decent birder (female or immature Buntings, phylloscopus warblers when they're not singing and just flitting around in the bushes, briefly glimpsed raptors, distant offshore Shearwaters.....all beyond me ID-wise). I'd never have made a twitcher either. Plus I don't drive and am completely out of the loop on rarity news anyway. I missed a nearby Siberian Crane, I heard about it a week later in the local paper.

Targets for next year? A few common birds are still missing from the list of birds I'd expect to see around here. Siberian Thrush is one. Several Species of Owl. Jungle Nightjar. Various seabirds and still a few common waders have eluded me in Japan. Photo-wise I'd like to get the local Waxwings. 4 out of the last 5 winters there have been loads of them in Hakodate, arriving in the 3rd week of January. Some decent Eagle shots would be nice too before I have to give Franck his lens back......that'll be a bit of a wrench!

I'm visiting England in late March and am really looking forward to it. I haven't been back since Xmas 2004. It's been too long. I hope to show my wife the city where I went to uni, Newcastle. I haven't been back since the year after I graduated (1991). We're also planning a big round Hokkaido trip in mid June (when England won't be playing in Euro 2008). If you're reading this and thinking about burgling the house, don't bother. i have nothing worth nicking. The only valuable things (my camera gear and my wife's laptop) won't even be there. And we've trained our Clownfish ('Hank') to viciously attack intruders and to show absolutely no mercy. You've been warned. I'll also have accumulated enough airmiles for me and the wife to actually fly somewhere decent.................Delta you'd better not go bust next year.

I'll be 40 next autumn. 40, with no savings to speak of, no real career, no investments, no house. Mid-life crisis here we come! Or maybe I'll reinvent myself next year. I'll, er, think about that next week.

I actually met 3 people through this blog. The aforementioned Franck, a group of British and American birders on a north Pacific cruise in May and a former resident of Hakodate with her English partner in September. All nice people, the internet isn't so bad after all. Mind you I did get some abusive weirdo spitting bile after I made some tongue in cheek comments about people on remote Scottish islands...........oddball.

If you look on some of the blog links on the right you can see several Japanese blogs (Brabirds, Kochan, Totori Ring, Greenfinch) that generally have outstanding professional level photos. Carmo Police, an entertaining read, written by an Irish expat in Osaka (who regularly leaves comments here-thanks!) has similarly excellent photos. I have something to aim for next year. Mo San and Sato San are 2 Hakodate based birders who I often see out and about and their blogs are also well worth checking. Sato San's has excellent photos from around Hokkaido (I think he's some kind of professional naturalist type) and Mo San's is apparently very funny, if you read Japanese that is. The Hiroshima blog is written by a very knowledgable expat English birder though it hasn't been updated for ages. Other blogs in Sri Lanka, Iceland and Thailand are all very interesting to read too...........

I have software to check which country vistors to this blog come from. Over 80% of hits are in Japan, most of the rest are in the UK/US and lots of random visits from around the world and I appear to have one loyal reader in Belgium. So whoever you are in Belgium thanks for visiting..............

So Happy New Year to you all. I'll be getting drunk at the in-laws tonight, it's snowing outside...........I can't be arsed going out today.