Some late waders............

A Bar-tailed Godwit and a Grey Plover near town this afternoon................


Nothing much at Yakumo, Onuma or Sawara but at least there were a couple of common wader species nearer Hakodate. The Godwit was pretty tame and was feeding happily, sticking its long bill deep into the sand.

Sometimes it returned to the surf toget more traditional fayre...........

The local gulls never look particularly welcoming.

I often wonder where these waders end up. I like to think they go to some tropical paradise like New Caledonia, whatever must they think of Japan's trash covered beaches?

My arms got pretty tired handholding the 500 for these shots...............

These will probably be the last of the waders this year (except for the 2 or 3 species which visit in winter)....................

Bar-taileds are much more frequent than Black-taileds...................

My brother is visiting from the UK for a couple of weeks, he'll arrive in a couple of days so I probably won't be doing much birding for until after mid October.

Beautiful weather the last week or so.................

On a nearby beach there was a Grey Plover................

The only other wader was the photo-bombing Red-necked Stint in the foreground.............