Crap pictures but interesting birds.............

The warm weather in the last week brought a couple of interesting birds with it...............


This Striated Heron was west of town and I watched it for about half an hour as it caught lots of tiddlers in the shallows. I tried both teleconverters but the pics from the 2X were lousy and those from the 1.4X (ie all of them in this post) were only slightly better.

It is a pretty small heron but look at that extending neck...............

I was a bit disappointed with the shots but this is not a bird I see very often up here in Hokkaido (this was only my 4th in the last 10 years) so at least I got something.

Here's a short video I made of it (with the 2X on).



Whilst we were inland in the mountains I noticed a strange bird perched on the wires beside the road. It flew off into the forest but not before I fired off a record shot.

A bit of a local rarity this one.  A Dollarbird (or Broad Billed Roller), presumably wafted up to Hokkaido by the recent warm southerly winds, a lifer and the 4th addition to my Japanese list in 2016.

Not much else around. a summer plumage Great Crested Grebe at Kikonai, the usual summer stuff including lots of Ospreys everywhere..........