Summer staples

Some great weather this week most of which has been spent indoors working...............

Outside I've been chasing 2 of the local summer staples. One of these being Oriental Reed Warblers which are very common summer visitors and about a dozen males set up territories in the bushes along the local rivers. They are pretty shy and difficult to approach. They usually sing from the tops of bushes/trees but as soon as you even glance at them down they drop into the long grass..........

Their loud song is one of the most evocative sounds of a Hokkaido summer. Not exactly beautiful but they certainly get noticed.

Another summer staple is the Red Cheeked Starling, here is a male and female.

The exact same birds I photographed a couple of weeks ago in the cherry blossoms. They aren't as approachable as before and were busy nestbuilding in the wall of the rampart I was standing on when I took these pics.

I took a brief video too............

This species is also very common in Hakodate but is pretty much restricted to northern Japan in summer, it's almost a Japanese endemic (although it winters in the Philippines).

I see the Japanese PM resigned today. Like the arrival of the above 2 species this seems to be an annual occurrence, I make that 4 in 4 years. Hatoyama, Aso, Fukuda and some other nameless money grabbing oyaji in a suit whose name escapes me for now.

Walcott missed the cut, thanks for reading my blog Fabio.

The last time I watched England in England play in a World Cup was 20 years ago. Italia '90. I was finishing university at the time, it was a golden summer. 20 years ago. OMG. Not a vintage World Cup by any means but I loved it and for an England fan who wasn't even alive in 1966 this was as good as it would get. I can't believe this was 20 years ago. Pavarotti, Gazza's tears, Platt's goal against Belgium. That awful game against Ireland. Peter Purves advertising some power company during every break.

Actually this summer has quite a few anniversary landmarks. 30 years ago I started secondary school, 25 years ago I finished said school, 20 years ago I graduated from university..............where did those years go?

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