More Waders #3

A Greenshank on the beach at Kamiiso this morning. It was uncomfortably hot again today, I got heat rash and sunburn and gave up around midday..............it's now late evening and there is a spectacular thunderstorm going on outside.

The Greenshank was the most interesting species, I don't see them so often in Hakodate (they're common elsewhere near here, especially Yakumo).

I was mostly shooting into the sun so not a vintage day for pictures.

There was a group of 3 Ruddy Turnstones pecking around some weird green thing on the beach.

The 5 Terek Sandpiper were still around and still very shy, the Red Necked Stint flock fell from 21 yesterday to only 11 today. Lots of Night Herons and also the inevitable Ospreys........

So that should be about that for August, I can't recall a hotter month in the 10 summers I've been in Hokkaido. Although the storm has cooled things down a bit the forecast still says around 30 degrees tomorrow...................roll on autumn.

Still, this hot as hell weather means I feel less guilty cracking open a cold beer in the evening. In fact I think I'll go the fridge right now.

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More Waders #2

A possible Greater Sand Plover on the beach at Kamiiso yesterday afternoon. I'd assumed it was the same Lesser Sand Plover from the day before but thanks to Gallicissa for pointing out my possible error. A lifer, possibly. And looking closely at the pics they look different............

This is/was being debated over at birdforum. Thanks to others who added comments to this post too.The consensus however seems to be it another Lesser Sand Plover so no lifer alas.

Wader season 2010 continues..............

It was pretty tame and pretty much ignored me as it chased around lots of bugs on the beach............

Lots of very similar shots as you can see..........

Very hot and humid still............

Other species of wader were around including the inevitable Red Necked Stints.

Tomoyuki managed to see a Spoon Billed Sandpiper with Red Necked Stints up near Sapporo. I checked the Stints today and yesterday down here but had no such luck..............all had normal shaped bills as you can see from this shot.

Other shorebirds included a very wary flock of 5 Terek Sandpiper, several Common Sandpiper, a couple of Little Ringed Plover and a flock of 20 or so unidentified flyovers (Bar Tailed Godwit probably but I'm not sure).

Here's another video I took yesterday, the Stints were on a tripod and the Plover was handheld.

Night Herons and Ospreys were all present and correct.

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Just listening to the end of the Test Match, can we ever truly trust a result with Pakistan involved again?

More waders...............

A Dunlin on the beach in Kamiiso this morning, wader season 2010 continues.............

Dunlin is not as common as back in the UK and I generally only see the odd 1 or 2 mixed in with the more common Red Necked Stints. This one was pretty tame today.

I was trying for running wader shots again today.

I'll get the hang of it eventually.

There was also a lone Lesser Sand (Mongolian) Plover.

And 11 Red Necked Stint too.............

And lots of Night Herons again.........

Just listening to England f**k it up in the cricket, Liverpool won't finish anywhere near the top 4 this season and next week England play some Euro qualifiers (way too soon after the torture of the summer)................

Here's a wobbly handheld video of today's waders.

August Shorebirds from Stuart Price on Vimeo.

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On this day (August 25th....................

August 25th 2006.


A blurry out of focus Black Throated Diver at Kamiso. I think I saw this individual several times that year, I was very surprised to find it in August in full summer plumage.


This was taken with my ancient digiscoping set-up, this would have made a really nice shot if i'd had a DSLR as it was pretty tame.

A very hot day on a very long beach........and a rarity.

1 of a group of 3 Great Knot at Oshamabe yesterday, the wader season is well underway.

It was extremely hot and humid and the waders were on several long beaches. The Great Knot were fairly approachable at least.

Here's one with a couple of Red Necked Stint in the background.

There was a large(ish) flock of 50 or so Red Necked Stint on another long deserted stretch of beach, they kept flying ahead as I floundered in the sand in their wake. A hot sweaty business it was too I might add, it must have been in the low to mid 30's yesterday afternoon.

In amongst the flock were a couple of Terek Sandpiper and a Grey Tailed Tattler.

We headed back to Yakumo and I saw this bird, a 100% crop of a distant Black Faced Spoonbill.

This was reported 3 weeks ago, I'd been 2 weeks ago but couldn't find it and had assumed it had upped and left. But no, here it was. This is a rare bird, only about 2000 or so individuals in the world apparently. We waited for an hour or so to see if it would do anything (such as fly closer) but it just stood on a dead tree in the middle of the river watching the world go by.

There were some Stints near Yakumo too, here's one in the very late afternoon, I'm still looking for that perfect running wader shot.

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