|
| Hakodate Birding |
December in Hokkaido This is (as far as I know) the only birdwatching hide within 5 hours drive of Hakodate. It's at Sawara, about 45 minutes by car. It overlooks coastal flatlands that arereputed to be good for Rough Legged Buzzard, Snow Bunting and most famously Gyrfalcon. This was actually on Sunday. It was a blizzard outside with horizontal snow and the only bird I saw was 1 Oriental Greenfinch and huge numbers of Gulls, Crows and Kites in the distance. They congregate around a seafood processing factory in scenes highly Hitchcockian. Later at Onuma we had more superb views of a different Ural Owl (it flew off before I could get a pic) but couldn't find a Flying Squirrel. Hakodate has been surprisingly mild weather-wise this week. No car again so all birding has been done on foot. Among the more interesting species have been Goshawk, Bohemian Waxwing, Black Necked Grebe, Red Throated Diver and various common woodland species at the foot of Hakodate-yama (flocks including 5 species of paridae as well as Nuthatch and Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker). I met 2 of the people who have blogs linked to the right. Sato-san showed us the Owl last week (the link is "colorbox") and Mo-san took us through the forest on the unsuccessful Flying Squirrel excursion (his link is "yamasemichi"). Both take much better pics than me. The Third Test starts tommorrow. After my Adelaide comment I'm saying nothing. 01:15 - 14/12/2006 - 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 |