Late autumn in south Hokkaido

A Black Necked Grebe at Toya a couple of days ago: there gather on the lake in late autumn although they are usually too far out for photos unless they're in a flock like this........

On the way we stopped at Yakumo: the eagles hadn't arrived yet although we did see 3 Crested Kingfisher. At the river mouth were a flock of Great Egret and a small group of Whooper Swan too. Great Egret were everywhere; Onuma, Yakumo and Oshamanbe (and the Ribble too I hear).

Toya isn't so great for birding to be honest. There were the usual common ducks. a few feral Mute Swan and small flocks of Goosander......

We stayed in one of the large hot spring hotels on the lakeside, we could see the Grebes from our 9th room floor. The hotel was a bit tacky and noisy but it didn't stop me doing my usual trick of eating and drinking way too much before passing out about 9pm.

Before the eating and drinking we visited the small island in the middle of the lake, it looked potentially good for birding but at this time of the year there were only the usual common tits, nuthatches and woodpeckers.

On the way back there were flocks of Brown and Eye Browed Thrush in Kuromatsunai and at Yakumo there were the first Black Scoter of the winter as well as several Great Crested Grebe and 8 species of gull including 30 or so Black Legged Kittiwake.

Today we briefly checked Ono.........a Merlin was chasing some kind of Snipe, 2 Whooper Swan and 1 Bewicks Swan flew over too. Near Sawara there were lots more Black Legged Kittiwake......

As you can see it was very dark today. At Onuma the forest was full of birds. Lots of Jay, more Whooper Swan and Great Egrets, Great Cormorant, Little Grebe, lots of Tits, Nuthatches and Woodpeckers here too. Most interesting was a pair of very active Black Woodpeckers. It was very very dark and also very hard to get a clear view. This was the best image I could manage.......

This autumn has seen many many Brown Bear sitings in Hokkaido. Apparently the bears are very hungry (their normal autumn food supply is rather scarce this year) and have been seen much closer to human habitation than normal. Some have been seen at Onuma, hence this rather alarming sign......

It's easy to snigger at the overcautiousness of the Japanese but bears can and do regularly kill folk in the mountains and forests of Hokkaido. One person who I teach had an uncle who was killed and partially eaten by one...................

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Toya Again

Taken with my cellphone

As you were..........again

A nice autumnal day after several rainy ones saw me take a walk down the river. The egrets were still there, indeed there were more than last time. 3 Great Egret, 1 Little Egret and 2 Grey Heron.

I missed the Little Egret catching a reasonable sized fish (it was behind a bushy area). Not much else around town. 5 or 6 Daurian Redstart in the bushes along the river (including several females: usually we only get males here), a couple of flyover Hawfinch, some Rustic or Black Faced Buntings hiding in the grass, Bullheaded Shrike, Coal Tit, small flocks of flyover Jay...........

I've had my 7D just over 2 years now and it sure is easy to take BIF shots..........

The top one is a Great Egret, the bottom one Little Egret.

6-1!!!!! I didn't see that coming...........

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A dark Sunday in October

A drake Harlequin Duck on the coast to the east of Hakodate. This is a spot I visit every autumn to see the Harlequins, one day they'll sit still striking nice poses on a sunny day. Today was not that day.

It was a dark dreary sort of day, not so good for photos. We stopped off in one of the larger city parks on the way to the ducks. There were lots of common autumn birds including Jay, Nuthatch and these 3 species of Tit. Eastern Great Tit, Coal Tit and Varied Tit. It was very very dark and the ISO was bumped up for these shots, they do look very very grainy......

God, watching Liverpool was frustrating last night. Another 2 points dropped. I make that 9 points already dropped this season in games when they missed LOTS of chances.

Hope the Manc derby is good tonight, it kicks off in about 20 minutes. Rooney to get another red card? Tevez and Gary Neville to come to blows in the stands?

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As you were

A pretty quiet week, with pretty much the same birds around as last time I posted........

The Taiga Flycatcher was around until Wednesday, not a great picture but you can see its' diagnostic tail pattern very clearly. It was very very active and always seemed to stay in the shady areas.

Not much else passing through, a few Rustic and Black Faced Buntings, several Daurian Redstarts too. The vegetation is thinning meaning all the garbage people dump next to the river is visible again.........

There were 7 species of duck in town, 3 Pochard had joined the Scaup in Goryokaku Park (7 of them now) and there was a female Pintail on the river today as well.

The egrets were still around. 2 Great and 1 Little Egret, the latter is a bird I don't often photograph so I tried to get a good shot of it today. It was very jumpy and all I could manage were BIF shots.

Last Sunday we went to Yakumo. On the way I saw the season's first eagles, 2 young White Tailed I think but we couldn't stop. At Yakumo there were Great Crested Grebe, large numbers of Scaup and Wigeon and 7 species of Gull including the first Glaucous and Glaucous Winged of the winter, here's a shot a of the latter.

In previous Octobers I'd seen lots of Kittiwakes and Terns fishing at the river mouth, this day there were only Black Headed Gulls.......

I enjoyed the Liverpool/Man U game last week. Liverpool should have won, why was Henderson on as a sub up front trying to knock in headers at the end when Carroll was still on the bench?

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Steady on Taiga

A heavily cropped shot of a Taiga Flycatcher near my apartment this morning. I'd first seen it yesterday, it was very difficult to photograph and this was the best I could manage. 2 years ago I saw the closely related Red Breasted Flycatcher just downstream from this place. I think this is a Taiga Flycatcher though, the call was a rapid buzzing trill, which seems to match the descriptions in my fieldguides anyway.

Other migrants around included Rustic Bunting, a lone female Narcissus Flycatcher, Japanese Bush Warbler and the first Daurian Redstart (a male) of the autumn.

Ducks are building up: Teal, Tufted Duck, Mallard and Wigeon were around today and yesterday there were 5 Scaup in Goryokaku Park. A bit of a surprise, normally they usually arrive later and I've never seen them inland before.......

I've been going back and manually resizing old photos to fit my new resized blog template. One thing that struck me was that, in the last 4 years, in mid October almost all my photos were of Night Herons. This year there don't seem to be many at all, I saw a few several weeks ago but since then.........nothing. Where are they? Are this years' birds better at hiding? Was it a poor breeding season? Do they know something we don't and have already fled south in anticipation of an ultra cold winter? Who knows.......

There were 3 species of Heron on the river today. Grey Heron of course. Plus a Little Egret...........a bird I've yet to get a decent photo of.

All BIF shots..........

They were sharing the stretch of river with 2 Great Egret.

Thank god the Premier League is back tomorrow, England's international footy and rugby teams were hard to watch last weekend. I'm listening to the ODI against India now on BBC's websites. Only available to the UK eh? Someone at the beeb forgot to switch the international feed off. Shhhhhhhh................don't tell anyone.

Just about over my cold, it prevented any trips to Mt Hakodate for the peak migration, lots of Mugimaki Flycatcher and accipter species apparently......

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On this day (October 11th)...........

October 11th 2009.



A Black Legged Kittiwake at Yakumo 2 years ago. There were big flocks of them making landfall in the area during October /November 2009 and some of the flocks contained the rare Red Legged Kittiwake (not seen by me alas).

A very quiet month so far this year..............nothing around my apartment and I caught a nasty cold and couldn't get out much at the weekend (apparently lots of migrants on Mt Hakodate on Sunday, I was at home sneezing so hard I now have backache).

On a brief foray out I did see a Kittiwake at Shikabe on Sunday as well as an Oriental Honey Buzzard but no photos worth posting............hence this old one. Last week I was at Shikabe as well, on both occasions the Japanese Green Pigeons were present but not posing for photos. Nowt much at Onuma either, some migrating White-eye, thrushes and the common resident species...........I got my last mozzie bite of 2011 (I hope) there on Sunday.

A few ducks around, my wife saw 5 Scaup on the moat in Goryokaku Park (I've never seen them there) and Teal and Tufted Duck numbers are slowly building. No Night Herons, or maybe they are still hiding.

I redesigned the blog, it's wider and the pics are bigger. I had to go back manually and change the last 2 years' posts (so that the photos weren't tiny thumbnails floating in sea of blackness), such a boring task it felt like I was at work or something. I gave up around May 2009.............

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On this day (October 5th)..........

October 5th 2008


This is my most popular photo on flickr, a Red Fox giving me the stare at Onuma 3 years ago today.................

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