We spent most of the day at Onuma. The lake is still 99% frozen and there was the usual flock of Whooper Swans and Mallards on the one tiny ice free patch. The lone drake Pintail was still there...............it must have stayed the whole winter.
I tried taking some swan pics but they were all crap. There were also a few Smew well out of camera range and a White Tailed Eagle flew over in the afternoon.......
The Nuthatches were as photogenic as ever.
In case you stumbled across this blog and are thinking wow how did he get so close here's your answer.
A couple of Varied Tits put in an appearance but they were not so tame.
Also around were Great, Coal, Long Tailed and Marsh Tits plus Great Spotted and Japanese Pygmy Woodpeckers.
I took a side trip to Sawara. The port had Black Scoter, Goldeneye, Scaup, Harlequin Duck and Black Necked Grebe but nothing was tame and everything stayed out in the middle.
White Tailed Eagle and Peregrine were around but no chances of a photo so we went to a huge seafood processing factory to photograph the gulls and kites.
We only lasted a couple of minutes. What a f**king dump. Hordes of kites, crows and gulls knee deep in rotting fishy offal.
They all took off as I approached and I got covered in birds**t. They totally splattered my down jacket, camera and even my face.
The Nuthatches and Tits are much more civilized.
Thanks for clicking this link.......
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1st Nuthatch, Varied Tit (beautiful lighting from the snow), and BIF are my pick of yet another superb bunch.
ReplyDeleteI will never complain about gulling at Seafield sewage farm ever again. I can smell that minging fish factory through the internet!
Being shat on? Now that is suffering for your art.
Hi Stuart.....the smell isn't so bad in winter due to the freezing temperatures. Bad, yes, but bearable. I don't go there at other times of the year, it must be utterly awful in high summer though.
ReplyDeleteDoes that place smell like the Fleetwood fish meal factory (The Fishy)? If so I sympathise. Great shot of the glauc and superb Nuthatch shots.
ReplyDeleteI haven't had the pleasure of that place in Fleetwood but by the sounds of it they are cut from the same cloth.........
DeleteThe Nuthatches are my favourite shots.How I envy you being able to hold one on your hand.Sorry about your camera!
ReplyDeleteI could wipe the camera clean luckily................
DeleteThe nuthatches are superb. Always posing. Blurb now has a blog to book feature. I recommend you check it out and publish you best posts. It'd be a brilliant book...I'll buy one...and no, you don't have to buy mine.
ReplyDeleteHi Russell, sadly most of my blog pics are low resolution and wouldn't look so great in print.
DeleteI do plan on publishing one this summer, I've even made a start on it in the book module in LR4. It's more a vanity project for me: my last one sold only 6 or 7 copies (and most of them were bought by my mother I think!).
Can't beat those Nuthatch shots, and the Varied Tit is magnificent. BTW Varied Tit seems will be accepted onto the HK "list" after this winter's irruptions in East China.
ReplyDeleteGreat Nuthatches ! And Varied Tit (BTW - new to HK "list") magnificent, too !
ReplyDeleteHI John, HK seems to be geting a few additions to its list recently..........
ReplyDeleteGreat set of pictures - I want to visit Hokkaido even more now! Although the fish offal site looks less than inviting!
ReplyDeleteCheers - Stewart M - Melbourne
PS: feel free to link this post (and any others to come) to Wild Bird Wednesday on my blog.
Which jolli blog, magnificent photos ;-)
ReplyDeleteCéline & Philippe
Wow this is such a interesting post, for many reasons, wonderful images and oh my that fishy beach...hmm bet that was not so pleasant, but the birds enjoyed it~
ReplyDeleteYou did get to see quite a variety of birds and waterfowl. I'll take a lesson from your experience and stick to the smaller, "civilized" birds! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks again for all the comments................
ReplyDeleteThose tame birds make me so envious!
ReplyDelete