Miiscellaneous

An Eastern Crowned Warbler at Onuma earlier in the week.

From April 29th to May 5th I had a lot of time off and it was all pretty hectic birdingwise and I updated my blog a lot, here's some of the other stuff I photographed in that time............


I went back north on Monday to see if the Saunders Gull was still present and indeed it was. The light wasn't so great this time though.

Nearer Hakodate it was nice to see the commoner small gulls in their summer colours too.........

Nearby the Saunders Gull there was a Wood Sandpiper and a lone Black Winged Stilt..............

There were flocks of Shoveler, Pintail, Wigeon and Gadwall in the area as well as a drake Garganey, all I could get of the latter was this record shot. Only the second one I've seen in Japan.

This Gadwall near Hakodate was in better light.

Lots of small migrants passing through but I didn't get many chances to photograph them, here's a shy Narcissus Flycatcher.

95% of the small migrants seem to be these 2 species anyway, Black Faced Bunting and Japanese Bush Warbler.

And the common resident forest birds are all still present..............

Other birds in the week that I didn't photograph included Grennshank, Grey Tailed Tattler,  Black Throated Diver, Rhinoceros Auklet, White Fronted Goose, Oriental Cuckoo, Asian Brown Flycatcher, Kingfisher, Oriental Reed Warbler, Crossbill, Siskin, Hawfinch, Long Tailed Rosefinch, Great Egret, Eastern Marsh Harrier, Buzzard, Peregrine, Mountain Hawk Eagle, Japanese Thrush,  Brown Thrush and some others I've forgotten to mention I'm sure.

The Saunders Gull and 2 species of Spoonbill were nice local rarities and I managed to get my first ever shots of Japanese Robin. It was a pretty good week.............

I'm off for 2 or 3 days slightly up north, hopefully see something interesting there too.