Midsummer Snipes

A Lathams Snipe next to a busy road yesterday. Route 5, the main road north out of Hakodate, is in places flanked by grassland and scrub and in these areas the Snipes are very common at this time of year.

I managed to take some short handheld video clips from the car window..........

You can see the full HD version if you click on the video.

There were 3 together doing their crazy display flights in this particular location but other individuals were everywhere..........

This is a typical view of one in the grasslands.......

In Ono the Stonechats have left the nest............

It was an overcast day yesterday, I was on ISO 800 most of the time.

 We saw more stuff further north but I'll post that tomorrow............

Thanks for clicking this link.



England at the World Cup. Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. I never fall for the usual pre-tournament hype (why the hell did Capello say anything less than the final would be a failure?) but in my darkest dreams I never expected them to be as bad as they were against Algeria. Carragher strolling to halfway, passing sideways to Terry who punts it back to James who hoofs it up to Heskey who doesn't get anywhere near it and Algeria get it back. How many times did that happen last Friday?

Having said that France are in an even worse situation and Italy/Germany/Spain aren't doing that great either. What's happening?

The construction work started next door, hammers are hammering, saws are sawing and drills are drilling. And England are torturing me in the small hours. It must be summer.