April 16th 2010.
An Ancient Murrelet in the nearest port to my house 2 years ago today.
This individual hung around Hakodate Bay for a few weeks and on this day came very close to the quayside as it pursued the hordes of tiny fish that were very common in April that year.........
I went to the same place today actually. 2 years ago there were grebes, divers and many seaduck in addition to the murrelet. Today there were only 3 Red Breasted Merganser, 3 Scaup and a single Red Necked Grebe, all way too far off for any possibility of a photo.
Thanks for clicking this link
I remember when the one turned up in the Bristol Channel - I had no idea what kind of bird it was, let alone what it looked like.
ReplyDeleteI recall a few cynics pointing out that the first Western hemisphere occurrence coincided neatly with the publication of the Poyser monograph of the species.
It also has one of the best Generic names ever (nothing can beat its congener for specific name though - wumizusume).
Rambling apart, I have never seen a better shot of one as they are usually dots out at sea - nice one!
Great shot. I've never seen one of these. I'll have to check the seaside more often. Recently I have only found a few gulls around here, i.e, One Black-headed gull along the river compared to buckets of them at this time of this year when I first got here. Should we panic because of the absence of birds?
ReplyDeleteStuart-unisuzume is Japanese for 'sea sparrow'!
ReplyDeleteRussell, some years good, some years bad I think......
As Stuart says most of the time these things are dots on the sea so your picture is quite something.
ReplyDeleteThat's a pure beauty! Hope you will see it this year..
ReplyDeleteAh.... "Sea Sparrow" I learn something every day !
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