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| Hakodate Birding |
More Eagles in Hokkaido. And a Thayers Gull? A White Tailed Eagle at Yakumo this lunchtime. The Eagles of both species were more numerous than a couple of weeks ago. Lots of adult Stellers but none were being especially photogenic. The river is full of Salmon carcasses. Not too much else around at Yakumo. It was pretty cold but no snow on the ground (although there were lots of flurries). Upstream a few commoner species were around-Brown Dipper, Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker etc. We only had a quick look at the rivermouth. LOTS of Gulls of 7 species with quite a few Glaucous and Glaucous-winged. The commoner Ducks were here too.  The only Stellers pic worth putting on the blog is this one. This was a long way away and it was snowing/sleeting at the time. It is a typical view though. With the white/yellow they're particularly easy to see.  Most of my birding recently has been done on foot along the river near my appartment. This is how I remember I did most of my birding before the days of motorized digiscoping. On foot with a crappy pair of 10x25s in my pocket. But I saw lots of good birds last week. An adult White Tailed Eagle flew over on the 24th and on the 26th I saw this bird.  A non digiscoped zoomed up pic of (I think) an adult Thayers Gull. I've seen this bird (I guess it's the same individual) for the last 3 winters and I just thought it was an odd Herring Gull. Very thin bill, 'cute' eye, black wingtips at rest but hardly any black in flight, about halfway in size between Common and Herring Gulls. I'm still not 100% sure but after checking online ID resources I've provisionally counted this as a Thayers (it is a separate species I believe). Birding was easier when all these were just Herring Gulls.  Crappy pic but it just doesn't look like a Herring Gull. Oh and maybe the normal 'Herring' Gulls here are actually Vega Gulls depending on who you believe. Also on the river in the last few days have been a drake Gadwall plus 5 other species of Duck, Varied Tit, Common Kingfisher, Hawfinch and Blue Rock Thrush. Bad week for England sporting teams (it's been a bad year all around). At least Liverpool are climbing the table. I paid $25 for the privilege of listening to the Ashes series via ABC radio. Not only did I have to listen to England getting thrashed I had to do it whilst listening to gloating and snickering Australian broadcaters. C'mon Flintoff. 18:21 - 29/11/2006 - post comment
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