Err...........more Brent Goose and Gulls

A bit of a grey Sunday in south Hokkaido. Not especially cold. But grey. I met Franck today (the French cheesemaker from Date Monbetsu). Franck is the person who kindly lent me the nice lens for the winter. You can check Franck's pictures here.

We went to see the Asian Rosy Finches near Menagawa. Except they weren't actually there. I did mamange to find a Japanese Accentor for Franck (a lifer for him) and there were also Peregrine, White Tailed Eagle, Rustic Bunting, Long Tailed Rosefinch and Harlequin Duck. There were lots of Glaucous Winged Gulls, they were everywhere. here's a 3rd winter bird with a 2nd winter Glaucous thrown in for good measure.





The Cormorants are coming into breeding plumage. Here's a shot of both the local species. The larger one is a Japanese Cormorant and the smaller one is a Pelagic Cormorant.



The Brent Geese are photogenic even in crappy light like today.







One annoying habit I have is that I change camera settings and then forget to change them back to something more suitable, like this horribly underexposed Red Breasted Merganser that photoshop couldn't quite rescue.



The Brent Geese are as relaible as the Nuthatches.







So I just watched Man City win the Manc derby, a bit of a surprise (and their fans didn't boo during the minute's silence either which was also a surprise). Hopefully Liverpool can spring a surprise at Chelsea (and lord knows we need the 3 points considering everyone else around us is winning these days).

I downloaded the recent series of 'Shameless' and the League of Gentlemen movie (which passed me by when it was released). Good solid north western fare for me stuck here on the other side of the Eurasian landmass.

Nobody is saying Hakodate is the Garden of Eden either by the way.

Goryokkau Park has been completely taken over by an absurd white elephant construction project, the area around the river at Yunokawa is being defiled by an unnecessary shopping centre (which we all know will be a mildew covered semi derilict eyesore within 10 years). And the people don't even know how to throw a party. Scatter.