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

April 15th 2008.

A Goldcrest feeding in some trees near my flat. A common winter visitor and passage migrant in Hakodate, this is one of many species that is the same as back in the UK. Tricky little blighters to get a photo of mind you.

Red Flanked Bluetail appears......

A female Red Flanked Bluetail in a small vegetable garden next to the river this morning. As is usual with this species it kept flitting around in the shade, at least this one kept still long enough for this shot, shame it was so dark. At 1/250 sec it's on my personal limit of handholdability for the 100-400. Hopefully I'll get a nice shot of a male this spring.........

The first Bullheaded Shrikes have appeared and the first buds are on the trees. It's spring.

Not much else around, still quite a few Red Breasted Merganser on the sea. This Black Kite was from a particularly fruitless trip to Kamiso last week.

Things should pick up in the next week or 2, there should be a big influx of migrants at the end of April/start of May. I have to show a couple of visiting birders around on Thursday, hope there's some interesting stuff in the forest on Mt Hakodate.

Due to a delay in paperwork we are still carless but we should definitely have it by the end of the week just in time for spring in Onuma and the May wader passage in Yakumo.

Well haven't Liverpool been pathetic in their last 2 Premier League games? If they'd beaten B'ham and Fulham they'd be in with a great shout of 4th place. But a team that relies on a 4th rate player like N'gog to lead the line has no right to expect a place in the Champions League.

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On this day (April 9th)....................

April 9th 2007.


A male Red Flanked Bluetail near my flat. This is a common passage migrant but one I find very hard to get a decent shot of, in fact I have to say this crappy one is probably the best of a very poor bunch. They are very active and love dark places. This was out in the open at least but was very hard to approach, it wasn't shy so much as impossible to pin down as it was so hyperactive. Plus I hadn't really figured out how to use my camera yet and had a crappy $100 lens on it.


Unfortunately the trees where this bird hung out have been chopped down as Hakodate City 'improves' the river, 'improve' being a euphemism for 'finding unnecessary work for otherwise unemployable men to do'. This spring there is a shocking amount of garbage along the river; several bikes, a guitar and keyboard, lots of TVs as well as countless cans/bottles/plastic bags. Why didn't Hakodate City Hall pay those men to pick up the litter instead of chopping down the trees?

Black Throated Diver

A Black Throated Diver in one of the local harbours this morning. It came close to the quayside allowing me to fire off hundred or so shots.

Exposure was tricky, a black and white bird on the sea on a very bright day. Most of my keepers were when the light was behind me of course.

There were loads of little tiny fish around so I guess it was feasting on those.............

I think it's a Black Throated Diver and not the very similar Pacific Diver. It appeared to have the diagnostic white patch on its flanks although you can't see it so well in most of these photos.

A nice addition to my photo collection, it'll go alongside the Red Throated Diver from last month.

Also around was a lone scruffy looking Black Necked Grebe, a few Scaup, several flocks of Red Breasted Merganser and half a dozen Red Necked Grebe.

The weather has been great the last week but until today the birding was very very quiet indeed. An Osprey and a Goshawk were nice flyovers on the river and the first Oriental Turtle Dove appeared last Sunday. The female Gadwall has been sticking around, here are 3 photos from 3 separate days.

And here is a very short video of a drumming Great Spotted Woodpecker in Goryokaku Park.

I got up to watch the 2 Champions League games, I wasn't surprised Arsenal lost but quite how Man U could throw it away after leading 3-0 is beyond me.

Liverpool aren't going to finish 4th. Only the Europa Cup then. Should I get up in the middle of the night to watch them against Benfica?

So we may get a car by Saturday, paperwork permitting. I hope the weather holds.

After our car died last month my wife's laptop conked out last Sunday meaning after buying the car we then had to buy her a new PC. Never ever buy a computer made by Sharp.

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On this day (April 4th)....................

April 4th 2008.


Avocet at Marshside, Southport UK.


Lots of interesting birds have become more common in NW England since I lived there. This species is one of them, I can't believe how common they've become. Ditto Little Egret of course and now I believe Cettis Warbler has spread up north too.
There were lots of Avocets at Marshside. It would have been a rare and exotic bird when I was a regular visitor in the early to mid 80's.


Even near my parents' house there was new stuff on my last visit. Common Buzzard and Nuthatch were both recent colonists. What next?


Very nice clear weather the last 2 or 3 days in Hakodate but not many birds at all, today would have been great at Onuma and Shikabe.....................if we had a car that is.


Last year on this weekend the Black Necked Grebes were showing very well in the harbour in Shikabe. We should have a car sorted by next weekend, hope the Grebes will still be hanging around. If I can persuade my wife to drive me there................

On this day (April 1st)....................

April 1st 2009.


Another Crossbill shot from the park near my apartment last year, this one looks like a first winter male. Still no Crossbills to report in 2010. I looked back on my old notes and discovered that over the years on several occasions they appeared first in April, stayed a couple of weeks and then disappeared again. Fingers crossed this year will see something similar.


It's raining outside and has been all day, you never know there may be Crossbills sheltering in the park ready for me to find tomorrow morning when the rain will hopefully have stopped.

So that was winter then........

An Ancient Murrelet in Hakodate Bay this Tuesday morning. I walked down to see if the Brent Geese were still there (they were) and was surprised to see this alcid so close to the touristy area. Not really close (the pic is a fairly heavy crop) but much closer than usual. A nice find, only the second one I've seen in Hakodate. I've seen several others in various locales, late winter/early spring often sees auks visit the harbours and bays but it's usually Rhinoceros Auklets.

There was still some snow and ice around but it was sunny and windy, I'm sure that's the end of winter. A bit of a strange one, this one of 2009/10. More Hoopoes than Crossbill/Waxwings (one versus zero). No Asian Rosy Finch. No influxes of any winter passerines at all actually, not even Brambling or Bullfinch. Not a single Siskin or Redpoll and hardly any Buntings either. Where did they all go? 

It was a good winter for Brent Geese though and today there was a flock of 35 in Irifune Port. They were pretty restless, I'm sure they'll be off in a day or two. They kept flying off and coming back. Nice to get some Brent BIF shots for a change.

Whilst on the ground they were either strutting around squabbling or resting.

I said last week it was the last time to see them this winter but I was wrong.  I'm glad I could get back one more time.

Here's a video of them preening and getting ready to depart. It was windy so the sound was brutal: I replaced it with sound effects.



I tried some Gull sound effects but it didn't sound like the local Gulls at all. See, I have some standards.

Lots of Red Breasted Merganser about, a few Goldeneye and Pintail plus the Harlequin Ducks of course (none of those species came close enough for a photo though). I tried to find the Hoopoe again but couldn't. Apparently there were a few in south Hokkaido the last week or so.

The Coot was still on the river and the usual small birds were still present. Like this Daurian Redstart.

Another heavy crop, it wasn't as tame as it was a few weeks ago........

And this Dusky Thrush was from today.

Today was a bit duller weather-wise. I noticed this duck yesterday but didn't give it a second glance, I assumed it was just a female Mallard. I took a closer look this morning though. It is, I think, a female Gadwall. This isn't so common round here, I only see one or two a year.

There were quite a few Gulls on the river including this individual.

Note the leg colour (yellow). This is one of those 'taimyrensis' type Gulls. Many years ago there were 2 species of Gull. Herring Gulls and Lesser Black Backed Gulls. They were closely related and had lots of different subspecies. Now they have been split into god knows how many different full species and this is an intergrade between 2 of those. Vega Gull and Heuglins Gull to be precise.

It's darker than a regular Vega Gull, such as this one also on the river today.

You can see our bird is clearly lighter than the resident Slaty Backed Gulls (which aren't in a complex that has been split.................yet). the Slaty Backed is the one in the foreground.

So what is it? A Heuglins Gull? A Taimiyr Gull? Soon to ID a Gull you'll need to get a blood sample and sequence its DNA.

Normally I wouldn't care about this scientific waffle but this may be important to me soon. My Hakodate local list is on 195 and I'm eyeing the 200. Stuff like this Gull (and the dodgy Crossbill from last year that I reposted recently) will test my ticking integrity in 3 or 4 species time....

I almost got a nice Long Tailed Rosefinch picture today. A male near my apartment.

F***ing twigs and branches.

I got up to watch Bayern v Man U very early this morning. Whilst I smirked a little at the result I'm now thinking oh god Rooney is injured before a World Cup again. I hope it isn't too serious. Actually it doesn't bear thinking about. It would be a crying shame if the only mark he ever made in a World Cup was on Carvalho's groin. It might also mean England's World Cup hopes rely on someone like Carlton Cole or Darren Bent. Oh dear.

Still, let's be positive. It may only be something like 4-6 weeks out which would mean Man U's season may implode (which would be nice) and he'd be fresh and raring to go in South Africa (which would be even better).

So this weekend it'll be 3 whole weeks without a car, hopefully we'll get our hands on a nice used one next month. God I hope so.......

I noticed the first fuki shoots near my flat, a sure sigh spring has sprung.

By the way I've changed my blog name from 'S.C.E' to 'Stu'. The original stood for 'Stella C Eagle' (oh how witty) but I got tired of that so I'll just use my real name. I've changed the photo too, it's only a few months old. But by god I look cool don't I?

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On this day (March 30th)....................

March 30th 2008.


A Wren in England. This was the first (and only so far) time I'd been back to the UK with a digital camera. This bird was down a country lane in Hutton, about 20 minutes walk from my parents' place. The same species is present in Japan but the subspecies in east Asia is much darker than those in England.


The ones here don't pose out in the open much either..............

Hoopoe

A nice find this morning, a Hoopoe about 100 yards from my flat!

A scarce bird in Japan but probably commoner than in the UK. I've seen several in Japan over the years.

It was a bit nervous and kept flying off, the local Crows were harrying it.

This is the second I've seen in Hakodate, the last one was on March 30th 2005. That arrived after some very strong westerlies as did this one (last weekend saw some terrible windy weather with heavy snow too).

Strange to see them when there's snow on the ground, they're a bird I associate with sunny olive groves.

This is the second exciting bird since I last posted. The other was a juvenile Stellers Sea Eagle flying over the sea yesterday. Too far off for anything but a record shot (I won't bother posting one here) but a local tick, I think that leaves my Hakodate list on either 194 or 195.

I went to Kamiso last Friday but not only were there no birds it was absolutely freezing too. No photos from that day. Yesterday I walked down the river and was surprised to see a pair of Red Breasted Merganser well upstream. Here's the male.

I got much closer than this and the bird was in perfect light and just as I was ready to press the shutter one of those right wing propaganda trucks switched on its loudspeaker and the ducks flew off never to be seen again. Morons. '"F**king Facists Foil Foto" was the working title of this post until the I saw the Hoopoe.

Lots of Hawfinches too, this one was from yesterday.

I think I overdid some of the colours in today's photos, some (like the one above) look a bit artificial.........hmmmm.

These ones were taken through a mesh fence this morning.

I could have added 'fences' to the original title of this post too.

So Liverpool decided to start playing well with only half a dozen games to go. Looking at Villa's collapse and the run-ins for Spurs/Man City 4th place may still be possible I suppose.

Click on this if you have the time, I'll be grateful as it means I'll shoot up the rankings.