Rainbow

I got up very early on Wednesday, it started raining so I went home after seeing no birds but at least there was a rainbow from the balcony.

Still no car and lousy weather (windy or rainy) so not much to write about.........some late Crossbill, a pair of Chestnut Eared Bunting, that's about it plus the common stuff. I missed the Red Necked Pharalope passage too. I'll stop now before I go into whine overdrive.

Here's a couple of crappy photos from a very very windy afternoon.





The main wildlife experience of the last week was watching some local government workmen getting rid of a crow's nest. it took FIVE men to remove one nest. It was comedy gold. 2 on the ladder (screaming like drunks in an absurd attempt to intimidate the crows), 2 on the ground with poles and 1 in the truck whose job seemed to be watching the others whilst smoking. Anyway, 1 chick flopped to the ground and was put in a bag presumably to be disposed of somewhere. A murder of crows.

The Champions League Final was much better than I expected, thought Chelsea were a bit unlucky. Drogba-what was that pathetic little slap for? If you're going to be red carded at least use your fist. I actually ended up wanting Chelsea to win. Whatever. Football is dead to me for the next 2 months anyway.

Carless and hungover Sunday

2 of the commoner local birds. Bull Headed Shrike and Oriental Reed Warbler. These were taken this afternoon with the 70-300 lens (I decided it wasn't worth taking the 100-400 lens with me, a mistake as it turned out). I had a nasty hangover after knocking back the equivalent of 8 or 9 pints last night. Plus we don't have the car after my wife reversed into the front window of one of the local convenience stores.

The Shrikes and Warblers (and the Red Cheeked Starlings) are just about the only birds to be photographed near my flat in the summer months. There are usually 2 or 3 pairs of Shrikes and 6 or 7 pairs of Warblers along the river. The latter species are especially noisy and are abundant summer visitors across the region. I'll have plenty of chances to get better pics I hope.......



Ditto the Shrikes.....





Not much else around. The first Spot Billed ducklings were born a couple of days ago and this Japanese Skylark is the first halfway decent shot I've managed of the species.



The 70-300 seems very light compared to the white monster I've been using most of the last 6 months, it almost feels like a toy. Still, today's heavily cropped shots weren't too bad.

Not much else happening in the last few days so here are a couple of random shots of nothing in particular.





I'm too hungover to bother cloning out the dust spots on the sunset shot.

Caught a bit of the Cup final last night...........didn't look a terribly interesting game I have to say. I'm listening to Test Match Special at the moment, I miss watching live cricket. I have to put up with Geoff Boycott's 'insights' though......

So I hope we get the car back soon. The Champions League final should be worth watching, dunno if I'll be watching it live.........

Pointless early rise

So we got up at dawn today and were atop Mt Hakodate at 4.30am. The weather was cool, overcast and a bit foggy and rapidly getting worse. Perfect for a fall of migrants? Nope. Almost no birds at all. A few Siberian Blue and Japanese Robins singing somewhere down in the mist, a lone Sparrowhawk flying over, the odd Japanese Thrush here and there, the inevitable Black Faced Buntings and Bush Warblers and that was about it.

With my wife (justifiably) complaining bitterly about the pointlessness of it all we headed down and the above Red Fox was right at the foot of the mountain. Actually at one point there was a Mexican standoff between me, the Fox and a local cat. My wife said it reminded her of the final scene in The Good, the Bad, the Ugly but she tactfully declined to say which one I was.

Narcissus and Blue and White Flycatchers were in the woods at the bottom too but it was too dark for any pictures. There were 2 Grey Tailed Tattlers at the fishing harbour nearby but the light was awful as you can see.





So we headed out to Onuma where the forest was again full of birds. Absolutely loads of these.



In the small area of forest I checked there must have been half a dozen males buzzing around although the poor light meant the photos were poor compared to last time. I also saw (from a distance) Black and Grey Headed Woodpeckers at nestholes, lots of Siskin, a few Long Tailed Rosefinch, Eastern Crowned Warbler, Brown and Japanese Thrush. Here's a crappy record shot of the latter.



Another Fox on the roadside provided the best photos of the day.





It's pouring down with rain outside now but the previous 2 days saw nice bright sunny weather, here are some Red Cheeked Starling pics from Monday..........these are slowly improving.





Nothing much else about near my flat..........here a couple of random shots.





So the end of the Premier League was a bit of an anticlimax after all. I'll halfheartedly watch a bit of Euro 2008 next month I suppose. Actually I haven't even checked if it's on regular Japanese TV or not. It's on Sky but I can't be bothered paying for it. Last time some of the games were on terrestrial TV but most weren't........and anyway the games will be on in the middle of the night and without England's involvement I won't muster the energy to get up and watch stuff at 4am. I might watch some of the big games on sopcast if they're on at a reasonable time.

England's bi-annual flop at a major tournament will be something we miss in 2008. The last time they didn't qualify was in 1994 and that was odd watching the World Cup with no England. It spoiled my summer somewhat but at least my life was full of other distractions then (I was getting ready to quit my job in Hackney and travel around Australia and Asia and the summer of '94 consisted of endless drinking and pot smoking, moving out of my flat and crashing at various friends' pads around London) but I lead a dull life these days I'm afraid.

Perhaps I'll use the free time to finally start to learn photoshop properly.