Hakodate's gone all Bohemian

Part of a flock of Bohemian Waxwing in Hakodate this afternoon. The Japanese Waxwing flocks seem to have moved on and their more Bohemian cousins have now arrived. It was late in the day but there was a gap in the blizzards meaning I could fire off some shots.

Some of these shots are hardly even cropped and sometimes I had to zoom out to fit the birds in the frame. I guess they had just arrived in town and were too hungry to be wary. They were pretty tame and these photos were taken on a busy street. There were probably about 40 or so birds in the flock. Shame about the poor light though.........

They were drinking snow from the rooftops of the nearby houses..........

There were a couple of Japanese Waxwings mixed in with the flock, you can see one on the far left and another one towards the back.

They came down en masse to some person's garden..................

Quite a sight. They come about 3 out of every 4 winters. Last year there were no Waxwings of either species but already this winter both species have arrived in some numbers. The last time this happened was in 2006 (or was it 2007?) when there were loads of them everywhere right up until the end of March. Hope this year will be the same..............

I couldn't nail any action shots, too dark..........

I had been up in Yakumo in the morning with a friend, there were reasonable numbers of eagles but the weather was terrible. A complete whiteout meaning zero photo opps and we could hardly even get out of the car.....................

This is a male Bullfinch in Hakodate a couple of days ago on a rare sunny day.........

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