First summer arrivals

A Black Kite flying over my apartment this afternoon. Just a practise shot.

The first summer arrivals in Hakodate were 3 Asian House Martin flying around one of the bridges over the river close to my flat. A small colony of them nest there every year. It actually snowed a bit today. Bet they felt cold. They appear identical to the House Martins back home in the UK but are apparently slightly different and are a separate species. Japanese Skylark, Oriental Turtle Dove and Common Reed Bunting also made their first appearances of 2007 in Hakodate. I saw all 3 species of Wagtail today with Japanese Wagtails singing and displaying.

Still lots of winter stuff. The Dusky Thrush pics are getting (very) slowly better.



Basically very similar to Fieldfares in habits, Dusky Thrush can be a bit difficult to approach. The other 6 species of Thrush in Japan are usually even shyer. No hopping across the lawn or singing atop TV aerials here.

Other birds around this week have included Buzzard, Peregrine, Brambling and the usual common woodland stuff. Here's a Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker at the feeding station at the foot of Hakodateyama yesterday.



My wife says these pics (and the exceedingly tame ones at Onuma) are cheating. So here's a real genuine shy Nuthatch that would never eat out of any human hand in the forest yesterday afternoon.



All pics taken with the new camera. I'm slowly getting to grips with all the settings and things on it. Of course now I'm thinking of which lens I'm going to upgrade to next.

Great result for Liverpool last night. A Liverpool v Man U final????

Around April 4th down the years:

1984 (April 6th). Ribble at Penwortham. 54 Fieldfare, 9 Ringed Plover, 1 Grey Plover, Tree Sparrow (abundant here in Japan but where are they in Penwortham now?), Corn Bunting......earlier in the week I also saw Willow Tit which is similarly very scarce now in those parts.

2006 (April 5th) Hakodate. White Backed Woodpecker plus all 6 species of Japanese paridae.