Swallows, Sunflowers and dead Dragonflies

We drove up to Kuromatsunai again today in the rain. The weather has been lousy the last week or so. Grey skies, muggy humid temperatures, rain, thunder. In keeping with the Grey theme the 3 most interesting birds near my flat this week have been Grey Wagtail, Grey Starling and Grey Heron.

The Barn Swallow chicks must have been born since our last visit.






The parents were very busy and completely ignored me snapping away.








In between the showers back down to Yakumo we saw Goshawk, Great and Little Egret, Black Browed Reed Warbler, Osprey, Little Ringed Plover, Common Sandpiper, Brown Thrush and Common Kingfisher. There were also loads of Pacific Swift heading south all along the coast.

Here's a scene to remind me it is actually summer.






We went to the local festival last Friday. I took lots of photos of random strangers basically. The one below was the best.


A bit different from the Notting Hill Carnival. Hakodate's festival is of course much smaller and is very efficiently organised. Not much spontaneity here. When I first came to Japan I saw a similar summer parade in Iwaki that was fairly impressive if a little militaristic.



I can remember going to Notting Hill Carnival several times in the early 90's. Heavy drinking in the pub beforehand and lots of dope smoking during the actual parade, eardrums assaulted by loud bass heavy music, huge crowds.............god I'd probably hate it now. Once I was so wasted I lay down on the pavement near the Rough Trade shop (is that still there?) as people stepped over me and I thought my head would explode because of the huge speakers on the next block. Amazingly I wasn't robbed. Not that I had anything worth pinching.

I wasn't in as much as a mess as this dragonfly caught in a spider's web. Every August millions of dragonflies suddenly appear. They're everywhere. Red ones. Yellow ones. They don't appear to enjoy sitting atop reeds or flowers posing for photos so this unlucky soon to expire individual was the only shot I could get.



Frustratingly it still isn't clear if the Premier League is going to be on TV or not. I keep getting fobbed off when I call ("we have no information sir.....please check back later" etc etc). A movie I watched last week was 'The Machinist'. I need the same diet as Christian Bale (well for 2 or 3 weeks perhaps).