ooops etc

The Night Heron was around again today. It's been a hot sticky week or so and I've actually even been busyish work-wise. Summers are usually pretty humid in this part of the world (although Hokkaido isn't as bad as Honshu and further south). We haven't had a really hot one for a few years though (by hot I mean it's difficult to sleep at night and I even think about buying an aircon system). August is always hot but the heat seems to have come a bit earlier this year. Hmmmm.............









An adult was flapping around but not close enough for a photo. Nothing else of interest, July tends to be a dull month for birds. My main wildlife experience today was ants. Crawling over my toes and up my shins, biting merrily away. It was too hot today for long pants and I broke out my sandals too.

Like I said, not many birds around. Here's a young Heron from last week, just outside Hakodate. And a Red Cheeked Starling fledgling being fed by its' mother.






Here a couple of funny things I noticed last week.



Speaking as someone who dabbled a lot in his 20's Japan is the least druggy country in the developed world. Dunno why they feel the need for this crappy poster with the pointless mangled Engrish. Or maybe the person is saying 'nooooooooo, I've lost my stash, nooooo!'




Not an encouraging name for a concrete company, especially when it's emblazoned on its' mixers.

I got a new i-mac a couple of days ago. My trusty old G4 lamp was feeling the strain a lot recently so I'm letting it take early retirement. the new model has a big screen and webpages look different (sometimes everything is squeezed into the middle with huge wide margins either side) and my thumbnail photos on this blog look awfully blurry (although they are ok when I click onto the full size). I also have Aperture and Adobe Lightroom primed and ready to compare, Photoshop actions that won't freeze my computer, RAW files that open 5 or 6 times faster and can be converted much quicker than my on my old computer, BLURB software to make some photobooks........oh the excitement is killing me.

The built in webcam can even take snapshots like this.



The G8 summit starts tomorrow. Huge waste of taxpayers money for 3 days of hot air. Luckily it's just far enough away for me to avoid the overzealous security and racist Japanese cops assuming all foreigners are 'terrorists' or something.

Anyway..........back to my new toy...........

Quiet summer days #2

A young Night Heron near my flat this afternoon. Lots of young birds about recently. Most of them hide in the lush vegetation though. This Night Heron posed quite nicely before it disappeared into the undergrowth beside the river. This was taken with the 70-300 lens. I haven't been able to photograph the local Night Herons with the 100-400 lens yet.

Maybe there is a pair breeding on the river. There are always young birds around but I presumed they bred out of town and dispersed.......

I remember the first one of this species I ever saw. An adult at Redscar (near Preston) in May 1987. I ditched my 'A' level revision to go and see it. They are common summer visitors to south Hokkaido and indeed are the bird that persuaded me to buy a DSLR.










There have been several young Grey Wagtails around too. They definitely only breed upstream. Most noticeable summer breeders are the Red Cheeked starlings. Family groups of them were everywhere this afternoon.





Nothing interesting happening recently. I've just started the latest Iain M Banks sci-fi novel. I gave up any literary pretensions a long time ago and am now a sucker for this kind of stuff.

The Euro 2008 final is tonight, I can't be bothered getting ( or staying) up to watch it. I see Liverpool are signing more foreigners I've never heard of. I hope the 2008/9 season is better than last season for both Liverpool and England. If it's any worse I'll give up on football I think.

Cricket? England must be the crappest one day side ever.

I'm 40 in a few months. Perhaps I should just stop worrying about football so much. I should turn my atention to pondering the meaning of life as I enter the last 50% or so of my own, my own personal poverty and indeed world poverty in general, prostate problems and IBS or other equally important things.

Quiet summer days begin.........

It was the summer solstice yesterday. Sunset is around 7pm here. No daylight saving in Japan plus it's right at the edge of a timezone means no long summer evenings here (although the sun comes up very early. Too early actually). Around this time of year the birding also dries up quite dramatically for 7 or 8 weeks. Nothing arriving or leaving. No wanderers reacting to cold spells elsewhere in the East. Just the residents and summer visitors busily finding food for hungry mouths.

The Red Cheeked Starlings were feeding young a couple of days ago. These shots were with the 70-300 lens. This female seemed to have picked up a cherry from somewhere.







On this exact date last year I got some better shots of this species.

Not much else around town. Today we stopped by at Ono, the Night Herons were still around (as were most of the other species from last week) but nothing was posing for the camera. The most noteworthy thing was the smell of strawberries wafting over the rice fields (lots of strawberries are grown around here).

Earlier in the day we were at Kikonai. The Little Ringed Plovers posed nicely at least.........







Lots of common stuff in evidence here too. More interesting birds included White Rumped Swift and Little Cuckoo. The inevitable Ospreys flashed past and i still haven't got a good shot of this species yet.




The missus will be working most of the next 8 weeks so no wheels most of the time. I'll have to find something interesting to do next month........

My prize for that photo comp? An electric polisher. Value about $15-20.