|
| Hakodate Birding |
Early summer stuffA quietish week or so after the big birding trip to East Hokkaido. In Hakodate Black Browed Reed Warblers were singing on May 30 as was Common Cuckoo, lots of Oriental Great Reed Warblers and Black Faced Bunting. A couple of Little Ringed Plover were on some wasteground next to the river. There were also several Oriental Great Reed Warblers on the river near my flat with breeding Bull Headed Shrike, Red Cheeked Starling and the first Spotbilled Ducklings of the summer. Over at Kamiso a few first (or second now I guess) year Black Headed Gulls were still hanging round on June 1st and a very late 2nd year Glaucous Gull was also present on May 30th.A couple of trips to the Mengawa River and Yakumo produced lots of the usual summer stuff................all 3 species of Wagtail, Common Kingfisher, Osprey, a few Mallard, more OGR Warblers (I'm tired of typing the full name), a different Egret species at each (Great White at Yakumo and Intermediate at Menagawa), lots of Sand Martin and BBR Warblers at Yakumo too. All these places are incredibly green now..........after the long hard winter Spring has raced by and summer is here. Can't believe how fast the weeds grow here. It must be over a foot a week. Had a drive to Onuma this evening. A Ural Owl was the best bird-flying across the road in front of the car. Lots of stuff singing in the forest. Red Flanked Bluetails, Brown and Japanese Thrush, Oriental Cuckoo, Narcissus and Blue and White Flycatchers were the most noticeable and there were other sounds I couldn't place. It's so overgrown (only a month agoÊ there was alomost no greenery at all) it's difficult to see anything. Lots of insects. Not that I'm interested in these other than not getting bitten. Lots. Lots and lots. I got bitten. Some Mandarin Duck were doing their courtship display on the lake. Strange yelping noises. But still cute. A Racoon running across the road was a nice end to the evening anyway.  I had another satellite dish installed on the balcony. I can watch all the World Cup games live. Life is good. I'm going to watch the England v Jamaica game tonight. The beer is in the fridge. England's dodgy first innings v Sri Lanka is on the Radio 5 live website coming out my computer speakers. Saturday nights. Love 'em. 02:34 - 3/6/2006 - post comment
|
Birding in South Hokkaido User Profile Archives BIRDFORUM KANTORILODE KANTORI Yamasemichi Some photos Tokyo Birder's blog Iceland birding Colorbox Ribble Blog My 2007 blog |