20 February 2008

Finch season continues.........



Crossbill was bird of the day but there was some other interesting winter stuff around today too.







I got up at 4.45am to watch Liverpool surprise me and beat Inter Milan 2-0. By the time the game had finished and I'd had breakfast the sun was up and it was a beautiful clear morning. I went to the nearby park to check if the Rosy Finches were there. They were but not as close as yesterday. The Crossbills were back, about half a dozen of them. One male in particular was very photogenic.





Here's a 100% crop of the photo at the top of the page.



There were also some Redpolls very close but I had the exposure compensation on (I had been taking Crossbill pics against the sun) and the photos were horribly overexposed and blurry due to the slow shutter speeds. Memo to self:remember to change camera back to your default settings once in a while. Here's one of the baclkit Crossbills.



Whilst I was sneaking around in the park I was attacked. By a Large Billled Crow. Gave me quite a smack to the head (I thought someone had thrown something at first). I like birds and am not an aggressive or violent person but I want to kill that crow. I had to leave the Crossbills to it and go back to accept the delivery of the new fridge before I headed out again to Goryokaku Park. The mild weather meant it was slushy but at least it was quiet (although some tree-trimming oyajis shattered the calm later on). Large flocks of Dusky Thrush Hawfinch, Brambling and Redpoll were feeding on te newly expose grassy bits. Here's pics of the first 2.





I don't know how grassy it'll be tomorrow as it's snowing again outside..........

Lots of birds at tops of trees today meaning some stange angles (and lots of butt shots). Here's a Brambling and Hawfinch.





The Long Tailed Tits I saw on Sunday seemed to have relocated to Goryokaku Park. They were as difficult as ever to get a good shot of.



There was also a lone Bohemian Waxwing. Not much of an invasion (I'm not sure if I've ever seen a Waxwing on its'own before), hopefully there'll be more arriving soon. I can't complain though as ther have been some great birds near my flat the past 4 days and almost all of them have posed nicely for photos (the Redpolls too, it was my cack-handedness that ruined that shot).





Other stuff of interest today included a Great White Egret flapping slowly overhead (but not slowly enough to lat me take my camera out of the bag for a shot), flocks of Coal Tit and a few Siskin and Oriental Greenfinch to add to a Finchy day.

I was happy when Gerard banged that goal in, it heralded a good day (apart from the Crow assualt that is). And our apartment is serenely quiet after the noisy old fridge was taken away............

5 comments:

  1. Wonderful images. I am always amazed that there are so many birds in Japan I also know from Germany.

    Can't wait to see some more Eagle shots :-)

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  2. Some impressive shots,I like the ones of the crossbill.Did you ever see any on our trips to the Cairngorms?
    After the pathetic performances in the F.A.cup, Liverpool certainly improved in Europe this week.Some of the selections still a bit weird though.No Alonso,Rilse,Benayoun,and Crouch on late--hard to understand,but it paid off this time DEP

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  3. Hi Markus, I may have to wait until next winter for Eagle shots..

    Hi Dad, yes I saw Crossbills near Loch Garten all those years ago....in 1984..........when we watched Liverpool bear Roma in The European Cup Final on that crappy black and white TV in that cottage at Laggan Bridge.....

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  4. does the White-tailed Eagle breed somewhere in Japan ?
    I love them. They are my favorite birds.

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  5. Hi again Markus. They breed in north/east Hokkaido............

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