Another Christmas in Hokkaido

A Ural Owl in one of the regular roosting holes in Onuma. Nice of it to strike a pose too..........usually it just sits still like this.

Also around at Onuma were Black Woodpecker plus a flock of hundreds of Hawfinches being relentlessly harassed by a pair of Sparrowhawks.......

We spent a large part of the day looking for a Common Crane up at Yakumo, unfortunately we couldn't locate it. The only bird in the area (except crows) was a Buff Bellied Pipit.

Inland the eagles were very active, I missed some potential great shots because of my general cackhandedness and the weather was very very erratic with blizzards one minute and blue skies the next. I really wanted some shots of them in the river eating salmon but they were always too far away or they flew off as soon as they noticed me. This was the best I could manage.

I took the same shots of the same bird in the same tree 2 weeks ago.........

A female Harlequin Duck was well upstraem and there were also various common small birds around including Bullfinch.

BIFs are a good fallback.

The forecast for Christmas Day is heavy blizzards and minus 13 on Boxing Day..........I may not even make it out of the house.............

I could go and see The Hobbit but after having found out it will be over 3 parts I might wait for the DVD. 3 movies with a total running time of 9 hours? I reckon I could probably read the book in that time.


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