More visitors to the pool

 About a dozen species visted the small pool in the forest...............


Short Tailed Bush Warbler, Narcissus Fltcatcher and Eastern Crowned Warbler from top to bottom.

The former (also known as Asian Stubtail) is a fairly common summer visitor but again is a species that I don't photograph much. It has a very distinctive high pitched song that is actually too high for me to hear...........

It's a tiny but characterful bird...............

Eastern Crowned Warblers are very common summer visitors..................

One of 3 phylloscopus summer visitors, it is by far the commonest. I didn't see any the much less numerous Sakhalin Leaf Warbler in this particular location and Arctic Warblers don't seem to arrive in Hokkaido until late May.

The most abundant warbler in Japan is the Japanese Bush Warbler. A rather dowdy looking bird it does have a very nice song. They are only summer visitors to Hokkaido (they are resident in the rest of Japan) and are everywhere...................

The 3 or 4 other photographers there were waiting for a Japanese Robin to appear. It didn't come but a male Siberian Blue Robin did..................but very briefly and I couldn't get a shot.

A male Narcissus Flycatcher and a female Red Flanked Bluetail also visited the pool..............

Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker and several species of Tit also came as did some Japanese White-eye.......

A great place which I hope I can visit again soon..............before the foliage makes it too dark and the mosquitoes take over the forest.

My wife saw lots of tame(ish) Japanese Grosbeaks whilst I was taking these photos, another species which I haven't taken any decent photos of...................