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Posted in Unspecified
Another mild day and we drove to Kamiso to do a seawatch at the mouth of the river there. The thaw has meant that it's just about possible to peek over the tops of the piles of snow along the riverside. Lots on the river-2 female Smew, 1 Little Grebe, 4 Whooper Swan, 3 Grey Heron as well as a good selection of the regular wintering ducks several of which were displaying. On the sea there were loads of Grebes. I mean LOADS. Pity they were so far out and testing the limits of my scope's zoom eyepiece. Rafts of Black Necked and Red Necked were the commonest but there were also a few Slavonian and even several Great Crested which I had believed to be absent from Hokkaido. They were easiest to identify by their pale coloration. Some of these were displaying too. Goldeneye were the commonest Duck and they were joined by good numbers of Black Scoter, Scaup, Red Breasted Merganser, Goosander and Pintail. All in all 13 species of Duck. Also present at the river mouth were a few Glaucous Winged Gulls of various ages. We visited Onuma in the afternoon to feed the Swans. their ice free part of the lake is getting gradually bigger every time and by the way they were stretching their wings and honking away it must be nearly time to leave. Goosander and Smew were also on the lake which is still 95% frozen. The ultra cute white headed race of Long Tailed Tit and several Marsh Tit were glimpsed in the still snowbound forest. The final birding of the day was at the fishing harbour in Shikabe where I took the above blurry photo of an extremely active Black Necked Grebe that simply would not stay still (or indeed above water) for more than a few seconds. A bit tired after getting up at 4.30am to watch Liverpool lose to Benfica (how inept is Morientes?)-think I'll tape the Chelsea v Barcelona game tonight and watch it in the morning.......... 
A wintry view from near Onuma.
19:13 - 22/2/2006 -
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Birding in South Hokkaido
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