29 March 2010

Hoopoe


A nice find this morning, a Hoopoe about 100 yards from my flat!

A scarce bird in Japan but probably commoner than in the UK. I've seen several in Japan over the years.




It was a bit nervous and kept flying off, the local Crows were harrying it.




This is the second I've seen in Hakodate, the last one was on March 30th 2005. That arrived after some very strong westerlies as did this one (last weekend saw some terrible windy weather with heavy snow too).

Strange to see them when there's snow on the ground, they're a bird I associate with sunny olive groves.




This is the second exciting bird since I last posted. The other was a juvenile Stellers Sea Eagle flying over the sea yesterday. Too far off for anything but a record shot (I won't bother posting one here) but a local tick, I think that leaves my Hakodate list on either 194 or 195.

I went to Kamiso last Friday but not only were there no birds it was absolutely freezing too. No photos from that day. Yesterday I walked down the river and was surprised to see a pair of Red Breasted Merganser well upstream. Here's the male.




I got much closer than this and the bird was in perfect light and just as I was ready to press the shutter one of those right wing propaganda trucks switched on its loudspeaker and the ducks flew off never to be seen again. Morons. '"F**king Facists Foil Foto" was the working title of this post until the I saw the Hoopoe.

Lots of Hawfinches too, this one was from yesterday.




I think I overdid some of the colours in today's photos, some (like the one above) look a bit artificial.........hmmmm.

These ones were taken through a mesh fence this morning.










I could have added 'fences' to the original title of this post too.

So Liverpool decided to start playing well with only half a dozen games to go. Looking at Villa's collapse and the run-ins for Spurs/Man City 4th place may still be possible I suppose.

Click on this if you have the time, I'll be grateful as it means I'll shoot up the rankings.

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7 comments:

  1. congratulations!!
    I've never seen Hoopoe in Hokkaido.
    I have seen it twice in Iriomote island, Okinawa and Nakanoshima (Tokara Archipelago), Kagoshima prefecture.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Martesorex, this is the 3rd time I've seen them in Hokkaido. Twice in Hakodate and once near Onuma.

    Hi Azahari, I'll swap you a Hoopoe for a Hornbill.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great shots of the Hoopoe and Hawfinch.

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  4. Some nice Hoopoe shots, there have been a few reported sightings on the south coast in the UK over the last week though I've never seen one here. Plenty about when I went to Egypt a few years ago though.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Very nice photos of the Hoopoe!
    Though they are pretty common in Thailand, they're still a nice bird to see. The main subspecies in Thailand has richer rufous plumage, and this pale greyish-brown one is an uncommon winter visitor.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Great photos. I'd love to see a Hoopoe.

    ReplyDelete

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