A female Red Flanked Bluetail in a small vegetable garden next to the river this morning. As is usual with this species it kept flitting around in the shade, at least this one kept still long enough for this shot, shame it was so dark. At 1/250 sec it's on my personal limit of handholdability for the 100-400. Hopefully I'll get a nice shot of a male this spring.........
The first Bullheaded Shrikes have appeared and the first buds are on the trees. It's spring.
Not much else around, still quite a few Red Breasted Merganser on the sea. This Black Kite was from a particularly fruitless trip to Kamiso last week.
Things should pick up in the next week or 2, there should be a big influx of migrants at the end of April/start of May. I have to show a couple of visiting birders around on Thursday, hope there's some interesting stuff in the forest on Mt Hakodate.
Due to a delay in paperwork we are still carless but we should definitely have it by the end of the week just in time for spring in Onuma and the May wader passage in Yakumo.
Well haven't Liverpool been pathetic in their last 2 Premier League games? If they'd beaten B'ham and Fulham they'd be in with a great shout of 4th place. But a team that relies on a 4th rate player like N'gog to lead the line has no right to expect a place in the Champions League.
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ReplyDeleteWell, i think the picture of the female Red Flanked Bluetail is very nice, even if it is a bit dark as you said. and I do hope you will get the male too, cause I did not this bird and would be happy to see a male. The black kite flying shot is also very nice.
I hope you will get your car soon, so that you can enjoy long-distance birding tour again.
Hi Stu. Nice Black Kite. Sounds like your birding should get pretty busy in the next few weeks. I look forward to seeing some spring birds.
ReplyDeleteNice shot of the Bluetail!
ReplyDeleteI've yet to see one in Japan, but the recently splitted Himalyan Bluetail is quite common in Thailand. The Himalayan one has white eyebrow.
Lovely Bluetail photograph. Nice work at 250th handheld. Wish my new lens had image stabilization. And it's so exciting to see buds on the trees.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your comments, yes I'm looking forward to spring. Always a good season for birding, I may even get up at dawn once or twice...........
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