Asian Rosy Finches

Beautiful springlike weather this morning in Hakodate. I popped out to the local park near my flat to see if the Crossbills were still there. No Crossbills but lots of Redpoll, Hawfinch and these Rosy Finch. About 10 of them. I've never seen then so close to home and unlike the other Rosy Finches in the countryside these urbane ones didn't mind being photographed.





There have been lots of this species this winter. Kind of a large chunky linnet on steroids type bird.





I probably won't be able to photograph them again for another 3 or 4 years so forgive the deluge.



Here are a few of the other birds from today. Unlike the above photos all (except the Kite) were taken with the smaller 70-300 lens. It's a cross section of the commoner species around............Dusky Thrush, Hawfinch, Daurian Redstart, Spot Billed Duck and Black Kite.








I watched 'Beowulf' last night. The first ever English novel. Even though it's about Scandinavians. Ray Winstone was the eponymous hero and spoke in a kind of cockney accent trying to be posh type voice. I kept expecting him to kill Grendel with a pool ball stuffed in a sock (actually the way he killed him was only slightly less subtle). At least Winstone's voice sounded more or less normal. Why do American movie makers make historical movies and tell the actors to use cod Ye olde Englishe/Oirish accents? All those rolled 'rrrrrrrs' got on my nerves. Kind of spoiled it a bit. Though of course the movie was pretty preposterous anyway. At least we get to see Angelina Jolies tits. Except we don't as it's actually animated. Plus she has some kind of tentacle thing going on.

I have 'Into the Wild', 'AVP 2' and 'Sweeney Todd' to keep me occupied over the next few days.

Our fridge is on its' last legs so we bought a new one. I have to wait at home on my day off for them to deliver it. The old fridge is humming away in the kitchen like a F1 car revving up. God knows what we'll discover behind it when the delivery oyajis take the old one away tomorrow. Maybe the spare carkeys (which I mislaid recently)?

I'm planning to get up at 4.45am to watch Liverpool v Inter Milan. I'm stupid like that.

Crossbills, fascists and a death in the fishtank

Some of a small group of Common Crossbill near my flat this afternoon. These are the first I've seen in Hakodate for ages (since 2004 in fact) but like Redpoll and Asian Rosy Finch they are present this winter after a long absence.



Also around in the same general area were a party of Long Tailed Tit, a species I haven't seen in town before today. They were as active as ever but this individual stayed still long enough for a couple of nice shots.





Also around today were Peregrine, Redpoll, Brambling and lots of Dusky Thrush/Grey Starling everywhere feeding on the abundant berries (I've given up on Waxwings thsi winter). I watched the Crossbills feed above me in some pinetrees for a few moments. Odd looking birds it has to be said. I assume this is just the regular Red/Common Crossbill. I remember in springs 2003/4 there were loads of them and they were very tame. The first ones I ever saw were in Scotland in 1984. I counted them as 'Scottish' Crossbill (hey they were in Scotland weren't they?) but they were just as likely Common or even Parrot Crossbill.







Whilst walking around town today I couldn't avoid these charming folk. Snapped with my 100-400 lens (not the ideal lens for shooting right wing propaganda vans).



'Uyoku dantai' they are called. Japanese Nationalists. They drive very very slowly around town in those black trucks with absurd pompous military music blasting out, bellowing out slogans about something or other (Japan's glorious imperial past or kick out those nasty foreigners or some such nonsense). If there are laws about noise pollution the police choose not to enforce them (they're probably off-duty cops driving the bus anyway). The music sounds a bit like the theme from 'The Water Margin' only not as cool. You can read more about these groups here.

There are rumours that the Russian head of state will visit Hakodate this year after the G8 summit up in Toya. These right wing groups are constantly protesting about how the Russians cheekily pinched several Japanese islands at the end of the war (memo to J-fascists:riding slowly around my neighbourhood blasting out that crappy music will never ever ever result in Russia renouncing those territorial gains. Trust me on this one. I studied politics at University). The upshot of that will apparently be hordes of these black vans/buses descending on Hakodate to annoy the visting Russian delegation. F***ing wonderful. I'll have to make sure I'm out of town for that one.

You know that shrimp I bought on Tuesday? It's dead, bobbing around lifelessly at the back of the fishtank. Hank the Clownfish is a psycho.

The footy season plumbed new depths last night. I actually laughed when Barnsley scored. I mean how worse can the 2007/8 season get? I can't really see Rafa surviving now unless we have a good Champions League run. By 'good' I mean 'win it'.

A boring week in winter

The weather turned a bit nasty this week. Rain on Monday which lay on top of the ice and froze on Tuesday, extremely strong blizzards on Wednesday and dull snowy wintry days on Thursday and Friday. So I didn't get out much (plus the wife has been working leaving me carless). We did make it out to Onuma but the weather was awful and there wasn't much about apart from the usual.





Around my neighbourhood I saw Hawfinch, Long Tailed Rosefinch, Brambling, Redpoll, Merlin and Peregrine as well as flocks of Grey Starling and Dusky Thrush (but still no Waxwing). Photo opps were pretty limited and I was reduced to taking pics of the local Teal on the river.







*WARNING*


Boring nerdy topic coming up


I've also been trying to suss out some of the more intricate features of photoshop. I've been using photoshop for about 18 months or so but only did simple stuff like levels/saturation/unsharp mask etc. I'm now working with selections and hope to move on to masking and layers. It's frustrating and this added to the need to start filling out my tax returns has given me a headache. Here's a pic that needed photoshopping (it wasn't that great to start with anyway as I had to crop it heavily).



The blurry stuff to the right is the blue railing on the riverside fence. Still don't know the best way to correct this kind of stuff (maybe it's impossible anyway) but I bet it's fiddly, takes ages and is f**king annoying as hell to do. I did lots of stuff to the image......magic wand tool, select colour, desaturate...........I'll work it out eventually I hope.

Here's our new addition to the fishtank. His name is P-Man.



A lot of the cheaper inverterbrates have been dying off at an alarming rate so at ¥1500 a pop I hope this Cleaner Shrimp manages to stay alive a while yet. He is being relentlessly bullied by the Clownfish who is king of the tank and is a lazy spoilt bast*rd of a fish.

So not much happening round here at the moment. The Japanese media is currently in a frenzy about contaminated frozen gyoza (dim sum) from China. It has allowed the Japanese press to indulge in rabid anti-Chinese sh*t stirring in a racist 'how can we trust those dirty foreigners' tone that would make editors of the Daily Mail wince. The fact that the contamination may have been the fault of the Japanese import company or that Japan has had its' fair share of food scandals doesn't seem to concern them.

Can't believe the Premier League wants to play abroad. Is this the beginning of the end? I hope the EPL (to use its' international moniker) financially implodes so we can forget all this nonsense. I hate to say it but even a fully fledged Euro league would be better, at least Liverpool would stay in NW England and not be renamed 'Dubai Reds' or something like that.

By the middle of February I'm usually sick of winter and Feb 2008 is no exception. Roll on March.

Err...........more Brent Goose and Gulls

A bit of a grey Sunday in south Hokkaido. Not especially cold. But grey. I met Franck today (the French cheesemaker from Date Monbetsu). Franck is the person who kindly lent me the nice lens for the winter. You can check Franck's pictures here.

We went to see the Asian Rosy Finches near Menagawa. Except they weren't actually there. I did mamange to find a Japanese Accentor for Franck (a lifer for him) and there were also Peregrine, White Tailed Eagle, Rustic Bunting, Long Tailed Rosefinch and Harlequin Duck. There were lots of Glaucous Winged Gulls, they were everywhere. here's a 3rd winter bird with a 2nd winter Glaucous thrown in for good measure.





The Cormorants are coming into breeding plumage. Here's a shot of both the local species. The larger one is a Japanese Cormorant and the smaller one is a Pelagic Cormorant.



The Brent Geese are photogenic even in crappy light like today.







One annoying habit I have is that I change camera settings and then forget to change them back to something more suitable, like this horribly underexposed Red Breasted Merganser that photoshop couldn't quite rescue.



The Brent Geese are as relaible as the Nuthatches.







So I just watched Man City win the Manc derby, a bit of a surprise (and their fans didn't boo during the minute's silence either which was also a surprise). Hopefully Liverpool can spring a surprise at Chelsea (and lord knows we need the 3 points considering everyone else around us is winning these days).

I downloaded the recent series of 'Shameless' and the League of Gentlemen movie (which passed me by when it was released). Good solid north western fare for me stuck here on the other side of the Eurasian landmass.

Nobody is saying Hakodate is the Garden of Eden either by the way.

Goryokkau Park has been completely taken over by an absurd white elephant construction project, the area around the river at Yunokawa is being defiled by an unnecessary shopping centre (which we all know will be a mildew covered semi derilict eyesore within 10 years). And the people don't even know how to throw a party. Scatter.

Man about town

The Kingfisher returned today, here's a pic of it staring back at me. No car for a while so I've been beating the streets of Hakodate with the smaller 70-300 lens. The river is partially frozen and the Kingfisher appears to have relocated downstream close to another bird from early winter that I hadn't seen for a while.





The adult Thayers Gull, still present and still being bullied by the larger Slaty Backed and Herring (Vega) Gulls. It looked better against a blue sky. Today's weather was almost springlike (but still freezing) and the Spot Billed Ducks were displaying on the river (when they weren't slipping around on the ice).



I was hoping for some Waxwings against the blue sky but had no such luck. Here's a Dusky Thrush and Black Kite instead.





Not much else around the last couple of days. Varied Tit and Rustic Bunting were the most interesting. Struggling a bit for anything to say today or for any pictures. Here's a crappy one from my balcony.



So the 39th Premier League game will be played abroad then? The death of football as I knew it continues........the age of the Franchise looms. Hope I'm wrong. One thing I know though. Liverpool will never ever play at Chiyogodai stadium in Hakodate.