Scoters and Dunlins

A Dunlin and Black Scoter at Oshamanbe today.

A bit of an weird day today birdwise. Again there were plenty of eagles at Yakumo but almost no photo chances..................they were all very actively feeding and squabbling on inaccessible stretches of the river. This immature White Tailed Eagle was the best shot I could muster.....................

I walked around a lot, flushing Crested Kingfisher, Bullfinch and lots of tits and nuthatches but nothing posing for the camera. We then headed up to Oshamanbe to see if there was anything interesting in the harbour there. I was hoping for Long Tailed Duck but they weren't anywhere to be seen. There were lots of Black Scoter however.

And in one corner of the port was a group of 5 Dunlin. Strange to think this species is probably scarcer than Stellers Sea Eagle in Hokkaido in winter..................

On getting back to the flat we received some sad news. One of the people I teach died of a heart attack yesterday. She had been coming for over 10 years and I had taught her before in my old job too. She was very kind to me and my wife and also to my parents when they visited. We'll miss you Keiko.


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A quiet Sunday in January

A White Tailed Eagle at Yakumo today. A bit of a quiet day birdwise. We arrived a little later than usual and there weren't so may eagles around. Annoyingly some hunters upstream disturbed them (they seemed to be shooting at the ducks, Goosander and Teal, WTF?) and even further downstream there didn't seem so many......................

It was only slightly below zero today so a lot of the snow turned into powder on the roads, Hakodate was especially nasty. The City Hall here has no money so the snow clearing isn't as efficient as in other areas of Hokkiado. Yakumo was much better than Hakodate at least.

Not much else around. A Long Billed Plover was the most noteworthy non eagle species in Yakumo and at Onuma there was a very noisy active male Black Woodpecker (unfortunately out of camera  range). I fired off some pics of the tame tits and nuthatches before the sun went down..............

So I hope Liverpool can get a result against Man U tonight. Ideally a controversial Suarez winner celebrated in provocative style right in front of Fergie....................

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Wintry Weather for Winter Visitors #2

I had a couple of spare hours yesterday morning so I thought I'd check to see if the Japanese Waxwings were still around.

They were.

The weather was better than yesterday but the sun was behind the birds. I couldn't go the road behind them as it was being cleared by half a dozen huge snowplows.

I even got a few crappy BIF shots.

It's still really cold, our door gets frozen (inside) every night...................that never happened before.

It was impossible to avoid the cluttered busy background..............

Should have had a faster shutter speed with the above 2.

The deep snow makes it hard to get around to some of my usual haunts so I was glad these were so near my flat..............................

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Wintry weather for winter visitors

A Japanese Waxwing in the park near my apartment this afternoon.

God it's cold. Absolutely f***ing freezing in fact. Bitter wind blowing in from Siberia, deep deep snow everywhere.

Still, winter is the season for Waxwings.

There were about 15-20 in the flock. At first it was snowing so like the eagles last weekend it was very dark and also difficult to focus.

The flock was also regularly driven away by the bigger more aggressive Dusky Thrushes and Brown Eared Bulbuls. I was freezing my a** off in the park hoping they would return and that the snow would stop.

The snow did stop and back they came.

The snow was deep enough to get inside my boots and my feet were frozen so I headed back to the warmth as the snow returned. Hopefully they'll stick around for a few days, the park is only 5 minutes away.

There were no waxwings of either species last year, I wonder if this is going to be a waxwing winter or not..............it's looking good so far at least.

Other stuff around this week included Brown Dipper, Wren, Siberian Meadow Bunting, a flock of half a dozen or so Long Tailed Rosefinch, Hawfinch, Dusky Thrush, Grey Heron and Great Egret.

There were 4 egrets around a couple of days ago and one of them caught a fish, I just about managed to get my camera on it just before it finished swallowing....................

It may be pretty darn cold up in Hokkaido but winter is my favourite season...................Eagles and Waxwings, what more could one want?

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Eagles in the gloom...................

After a week of really heavy snow I finally made it up to Yakumo yesterday......................but couldn't take any decent photos despite spending several hours there and there being plenty of eagles around.. I went with 2 friends today for a very short visit in the morning  in absolutely awful snow storms but we got lucky....................I finally got some eagles standing in the river shots.

These were taken in a small parking area next to the river, luckily the tiny 'car park' (really just a place for engineers to park their trucks as its is next to a small mobile phone tower) had been cleared of snow.

I often see eagles here (in fact lots of my eagle shots are from this exact same spot) and they feed in the water but always fly off as soon as they see the car.

But today they didn't...................

As you can see it was snowing but for about 5 minutes the raging  blizzards stopped.................it was still pretty dark though and focusing through the falling snow was really tough.

There do seem to be a lot of eagles of both species this winter.....................

At first there were only White Tailed Eagles in the water but then a Stellers joined them.................

It plucked a salmon carcass from the river and devoured it very quickly..................

I have read somewhere that Stellers are much faster eaters then White Taileds................

This individual certainly wasted no time...................

The weather was too bad for BIFs, this was the only one of the day...............

So despite the lousy lousy weather we got lucky today.................I wonder how long I'll have to wait for another day like this one? I have been to this spot 30 or 40 times in midwinter over the last 6 or 7 years, today wasn't especially different from all the other times................

Other stuff around this week included White Tailed Eagles in Kamiiso, the usual common winter wildfowl everywhere, Common Buzzard in town, Bullfinch at Yakumo, Daurian Jackdaw and Rook in Ono, the huge flock of Hawfinch is still at Onuma as was Black Crowned Night Heron, Black Necked Grebe at Moheji....................
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