Spring

Warm weather hit Hakodate this last few days. The temperature climbed to a dizzying 11.1 degrees celsius today. Thermal underwear and warm hats have been dispensed with, Oriental Greenfinches and Great Tits have been singing eveywhere, the slow is melting rapidly and has turned to mud and the birds have stayed largely the same. This was one of 2 Asian Rosy Finches in someone's front garden just round the corner from my flat.






New arrivals included a couple of Bullfinch and a female Pintail on the neighbourhood river. The Thayers Gull was still present and one of 5 species of Gull on the same tiny river. Crossbills are still aplenty in Goryokaku Park and Redpoll are still everywhere and some flew in front of my flat giving me a balcony tick. A Great White Egret also flapped over a couple of days ago andf this afternoon I watched a group of 15 or so Bohemian Waxwing flycatching at the top of some tall poplars (I guess they can't eat berries all year). Here's what may or may not be a Thayers Gull including a flight shot.......it looks different from the individual around Hakodate earlier in the winter. It looks a bit odd for a Vega Gull too mind.....





It's been a pretty lame few days for photos so here's some of the best of a poor bunch. It really has been a good winter for Finches.







These are a couple of sunset shots from my balcony on 2 recent separate days. Only slightly photoshopped.







So I hope Liverpool go through against Inter Milan tomorrow. Can't believe how inept the England cricket team have become over the last 2 years (well actually I can seeing as they've been like that most of my life). I watched Alien v Predator 2 yesterday..........what a stinking turd of a movie that was.

I got a new cellphone at the weekend. It has a decent 5MP Sony camera (though I need to buy a Micro SD card and card reader to transfer it to my computer), ok internet access (the full coverage isn't worth it as I, er, have a computer for that and I work from home), international coverage and lots of stuff I'll never use (for example a music player-I have to download stuff from NTT-no way, I mean I'd have to pay). It's pretty nice, I can upload photos to this blog which I may well do on summer road trips. It has an absolutely crap battery though.