Quiet summer days begin.........

It was the summer solstice yesterday. Sunset is around 7pm here. No daylight saving in Japan plus it's right at the edge of a timezone means no long summer evenings here (although the sun comes up very early. Too early actually). Around this time of year the birding also dries up quite dramatically for 7 or 8 weeks. Nothing arriving or leaving. No wanderers reacting to cold spells elsewhere in the East. Just the residents and summer visitors busily finding food for hungry mouths.

The Red Cheeked Starlings were feeding young a couple of days ago. These shots were with the 70-300 lens. This female seemed to have picked up a cherry from somewhere.







On this exact date last year I got some better shots of this species.

Not much else around town. Today we stopped by at Ono, the Night Herons were still around (as were most of the other species from last week) but nothing was posing for the camera. The most noteworthy thing was the smell of strawberries wafting over the rice fields (lots of strawberries are grown around here).

Earlier in the day we were at Kikonai. The Little Ringed Plovers posed nicely at least.........







Lots of common stuff in evidence here too. More interesting birds included White Rumped Swift and Little Cuckoo. The inevitable Ospreys flashed past and i still haven't got a good shot of this species yet.




The missus will be working most of the next 8 weeks so no wheels most of the time. I'll have to find something interesting to do next month........

My prize for that photo comp? An electric polisher. Value about $15-20.