A quiet Monday in January

Sunday blizzards

Nasty weather hit Hsouth Hokkaido last night. Sleet and blizzards, and temperatures just high enough to turn the snow into slush.

A local walk

I had some free time in the day yesterday so I walked down the local river to the beach.

Dinner on the beach...............and some Pine Buntings.

Some more photos from Monday, this time a little later in the day.

Lunch on the beach

A surprisingly mild day saw us back at the Gyrfalcomn spot yet again and it put on a nice show around the middle of the day.

More of the same.

The usual early 2014 suspects. Stellers Sea Eagle, Ural Owl and Gyrfalcon.

Minus 19 plus 2 Falcons.

I got up at 5am today and it was one of the coldest mornings I can remember for a long long time.........

Some common winter stuff...........

A short visit to Onuma on Tuesday morning saw the usual common tits and nuthatches, a bit of a comedown after the eagles, owls and flacons of the previous week.

A waste of 8400 yen

Some pictures from the last couple of days. Stellers Sea Eagle, Gyrfalcon, Ural Owl and.................Dunlin.

Phoned in eagle

I am staying in a cheap hotel in Yakumo, drinking beer and not much to do except play around with my smartphone. The above pic was converted to a jpeg on my camera and then uploaded to my phone via an OTG cable. God knows how it looks on a real screen........

Sitting around in the snow

The Gyrfalcon was very tame today, just sitting around on a signpost in the snow. There were several other photographers snapping away, it only flew off when a car appeared over the dunes and  pulled up unexpectedly.

2014 starts off with a bang

A Gyrfalcon to the east of Onuma this afternoon. I waited over 5 hours for it to appear in what is one of the coldest bleakest places imaginable.

Actually it's not that bad but it is an exposed place and there was a raging blizzard most of the day and I was stuck in the car. I popped out for intervals but the cold always drove me back to the warmth of the car. There were no birds except the inevitable crows, gulls and kites. Several other birders were around telling us that it had showed well yesterday but had not been sighted today, possibly due to the nasty weather.

I was just about ready to give up but my wife was comfortable taking a nap under 2 down jackets and asked for 10 more minutes. Then the falcon appeared.................

It sat on the snow about 40 meters or so from the car and flew off about 2 minutes later. I got out of the car but the wind was blowing directly into my face, it was very hard to keep the lens steady. The above shot is cropped and was the best I could manage. Hopefully I can go back on a calmer day.

Despite the blizzards the winter is late and mild. Onuma isn't fully frozen yet and ice free patches may remain all winter at this rate......................something I've never seen before. Ural Owl, Black Woodpecker and White Tailed Eagle were here but not much else.

So not a bad start to the year.............this has always been one of my dream birds to see.

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