A day on the coast

An Osprey at the river mouth in Yakumo this afternoon.

It was a nice spring day, alternating between mild and sunny and cool and foggy. Lots of stuff on the move, skeins of White fronted Geese and smaller flocks of Bean Geese high overhead, flocks of Whooper Swans here and there and large numbers of ducks of many species everywhere. Scaup were abundant in several fishing harbours.

I managed to take a crappy handheld video too.......

I've seen about 20 species of wildfowl this week but not many pictures were worth posting from today. Still no grebes anywhere except loads of Great Cresteds at several locations. This is usually the scarcest of the 4 marine grebe species but this year it has been by far the commonest.

At the river mouth and on several beaches I tried to get some Gull shots. 7 species were present including lots of Glaucous Gulls of various ages.

Dunno why the biggest Gull species is so shy, I could only get BIF shots.

Yu can see how pale they are, especially on a sunny spring day. Indeed the Japanese name is 'shiro-kamome', literally 'white seagull'.

Glaucous Winged Gulls were also common.

And here's one chasing an Osprey.

The Osprey was one of a pair fishing at the river mouth at Yakumo.

At the port at Oshamabe I was surprised to find a flock of 30 or so Dunlin............

There were many common seaduck offshore like these Red Breasted Merganser.......

The day started at Onuma, the Varied Tits were on form here.........

Other stuff at Onuma included a couple of White Tailed Eagles sitting out in the middle of the still frozen section of the lake, Great Cormorant, Whooper Swan, Bean Goose, Smew, Goosander and Pintail, plus the usual Tits and Woodpeckers. At Yakumo there were the usual common ducks, more Swans and at all locations there were singing Skylark, a sign that spring is here......

Yesterday I went to Kamiiso and there was nothing at all really, a lone White Tailed Eagle high overhead and that was about it.

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Spring 2011........

I always have a few days off at the end of March, it can be a good time for birds. The strong westerlies that tend to blow at this time often waft a Hoopoe or 2 over from mainland Asia. Not today, I spent a birdless morning in Yunokawa (it used to be a good place for birds but unfortunately development along the river has ruined it) andso in the afternoon I headed over to Irifune to check out the Brent Geese.

The numbers increase at this time of year (there were about 70 or 80 today) and they are much more active than in winter...................

I fired off lots of BIF shots, it was a bit tricky trying to focus on a fast moving flock against fast changing backgrounds. I should maybe be trying some different settings here, my BIF settings work OK if there is one bird against a clean background but a lot of today's shots ended up in the trash. Perhaps I should enable all focus points or change the tracking priority in the custom functions or something...............

It was a pleasant enough day but pretty windy..........

The Irifune area seemed to have escaped unscathed from the tsunami. I could sit down on the concrete with the fish bones and goose sh*t to get some group shots.

The Harlequin Ducks were still present but as shy as ever.........

Not much else around, some Red Breasted Merganser and several Glaucous Winged Gull in amongst the commoner Gull species.........

I basically have another 3 days off and the weather forecast looks promising so I may go back one more time for the Brent BIFs.

My doorbell rang about an hour ago and it was my neighbours. I've hardly ever spoken to them in all the time I've been living here (8 1/2 years!). They said they would be moving tomorrow and apologised in advance for the noise. I didn't realise I'd been here so long, their kids have grown up and are leaving home, they were snotty nosed elementary schoolkids when we first moved here. God I feel old........

I hope the Japanese government sorts out that power plant ASAP. No radiation up here (so far, fingers crossed and let's hope those westerlies blow a while longer) but c'mon, sort it out FFS.............

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Winter fades away............

Not a vintage week for photos.

A drake Black Scoter at Sawara this afternoon (above). 

We spent Sunday visiting fishing ports (4 in all) looking for Black Necked Grebes and other harbour birds but there were none to be seen anywhere. The last 3 years have seen large numbers of the 3 marine Grebe species plus divers and murrelets in the ports but today all we could find were a few of the commoner duck species such as these Harlequin Ducks, a bird I have few good shots of, today's were nothing to write home about.

I have yet to get a decent shot of a Black Scoter, they seem to be very shy and it is difficult to nail the exposure on such a blackish bird. They have a big yellow bill that is visible with the naked eye even when they are bobbing about in the waves well offshore. These were fairly close but not that close.........

At Onuma the Mandarin Ducks have arrived, one of the earliest summer visitors. This is another attractive and very shy bird, another on the 'list' of birds I want to get a decent shot of.

This was just before sunset..............

A Stellers Sea Eagle flew over as were leaving in the car, I'm surprised to see one so late. Quite a few ducks at Onuma now as the lake slowly thaws, sharing the ice free patch with the Mandarins were Pintails, Goosander, Smew, Goldeneye and the common stuff like Mallard and Tufted Duck.

In the forest I looked in vain for Black Woodpecker (I haven't seen a single one yet this year), the tame Nuthatches were around as per usual.......

A very quiet week just gone by in Hakodate. The Siskins and Bramblings are both still around. The only photos I took were of a Vega and Slaty Backed Gull squabbling over a dead fish with a Large Billed Crow, as you can see the Vega Gull got the fish in the end........

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I watched England v Sri Lanka last night, well I watched the England innings. I thought I'd watch the end of the game (which I thought would be very tight and tense) after the England/Wales footy game. I'm glad I didn't.........losing by 10 wickets is just embarrassing.

At least they didn't f**k up in the football, mind you Wales look as weak a side as England have played in recent years. I expected a feistier show from the Welsh, they just seemed to give up after the 2nd goal. And England seemed to let them off the hook meaning a very dull last 75 minutes..........

I had to endure Chris Coleman as an 'expert' summariser. Nice enough chap I'm sure but my god, if he's an expert then I'm a world class bird photographer.

Strange days

Strange days. I still have some half baked fears over plumes of radiation drifting up here (the wind will blow from the south some time tomorrow). Irrational fear I know but I've never really been very rational, one of my many faults.

Still no Crossbills around. There have been small flocks of Brambling (heavily cropped male above, almost in summer plumage) and Siskin in the local park. Other stuff included Dusky Thrush, Wren, Daurian Redstart, Long Tailed and Coal Tit, Black Faced Bunting, Hawfinch, Teal and Tufted Duck................but nothing particularly unusual.

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On this day (March 22nd)...................

March 22nd 2008.

Common Crossbill in Hakodate.

Very close (this pic was uncropped) and because I had presumably been shooting something else in very different light just before way overexposed (400mm at 1/160sec, F8, ISO 400) this shot still managed to look almost OK.

My fave passerine species, what little characters these are............a big shame I haven't seen any for the last 2 years in Hakodate, indeed my only Crossbill sightings in Hokkaido since May 2009 was a distant treetop flock in Onuma a few weeks ago......

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Winter ending...............

A Great Crested Grebe in the harbour in Kamiiso this morning. Last March this same little harbour was full of Black Necked Grebes, hundreds of them. This year they haven't come though (and there were none in Shikabe yesterday either). Not much at Kamiiso at all although I did see see the first returning Osprey of the year...........

Winter is on its way out. Patches of open water are appearing at Onuma. There were 5 White Tailed Eagles and one Stellers Sea Eagle. Usually they were sitting in the middle of the icy lake but occasionally one would lazily flap over.

And all the ducks would panic...........

Small flocks of Whooper Swans, presumably stopping over after coming up from the south, were in the ricefields at Ono........

There were lots of Grey Herons at Onuma too, again I think they are probably new arrivals.......

The tame Tits and Nuthatches seemed a bit scarce today, the usual common resident species were around. Here's one of the local Red Foxes........

After a week fretting over radiation and the end of the world it was nice to spend a couple of quiet afternoons in Onuma. I hope this is a good spring for Japan.