24 February 2012

The merest hint of spring



A Temincks Cormorant and Glaucous Winged Gull at Menagawa this afternoon, note that they are both in breeding plumage, it must be spring.

Well it has got above freezing this last week but there was another heavy snowfall yesterday.

There were lots of Glaucous Winged Gull on the coast.


I wanted to show Franck (a French birder who used to live in south Hokkaido) the Pine Bunting and Rough Legged Buzzards but we couldn't find either, maybe the snow drove them south. We did however see a couple of Mountain Hawk Eagles high in the sky.........


Here is one with a Black Kite..........


Other stuff included Peregrine, Common Buzzard, White Tailed Eagle, Brent Goose, Harlequin Duck, Whooper Swan and the usual common winter species. At Onuma we tried to find a Naumanns Thrush which Franck had photographed yesterday, no luck there. The Pintail was still present as were the Smew (11 now) as well as Goosander and Goldeneye but no chance of decent photos, the Smew were too far away and the Pintail was too close.............

The Ural Owl was dozing in its hole.


Not much in town last week, there were individual Grey Heron and Great Egret on the river.



And lots of Dusky Thrush still...........


Thanks for clicking this link..........


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8 comments:

  1. Really like the first portrait. A nice touch. The Mountain hawk eagles look spectacular too. You caught them in nice light.The Dusky Thrush is quite handsome in his pose with food as well.

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  2. I still haven't got a chance to see Temminck's Cormorant up close and in breeding plumage like that before. I've only seen 1 juvenile so far. Most of the cormorants around here are Great Cormorants. The hawk eagle looks great in flight against the blue sky. The subspecies found in Japan looks much larger than the one in Thailand.

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  3. I'm sure I saw two Glaucous Gulls yesterday,by a river 35 miles inland, thats
    about all I saw.My photos didn't turn out!! As usual yours are fantastic,love the
    first one.

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  4. Wonderful post Stu!!! What a great set of pictures and very ncie species you got!!!

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  5. A "hint of spring" will do... the Dusky Thrush is really handsome, and it's nice to see MHE together with Black kite.

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  6. Great series Stu, love the Cormorant, spewing gull, the owl and the heron. Great variety.

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  7. Thanks for all the comments. Winter returned today big style................and spring has bidden a hasty retreat.

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  8. Pintail was too close - How positively annoying...couldn't happen here!

    Cheers

    Davo

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