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| Hakodate Birding |
Geese and Swans One of about 20 very tame Whooper Swans at Utonai-Ko on Friday. This place is about 4 hours drive from Hakodate and is pretty well-known in Japnese birding circles. I don't know if these had returned for the winter or indeed had never left all summer. Also 10 Mute Swan, 2 Bean Goose (see below) plus a variety of commoner waterfowl (lots of Pintails), Little Grebe, Common Tern and the suchlike. The Mukawa river to the east of Utonai-Ko is famoous for waders and there was a good selection. 3 Ruff, several Greenshank, 2 or 3 Spotted Redshank, 7 or 8 Red Necked Stint, a single Grey Plover and a handful of Little Ringed Plover. Whooper Swan was present here too plus flocks of Mallard, Wigeon and Pintail. All this potential prey proved too much for 2 Peregrine and a female Goshawk. Not so many small birds about though except Stonechat and lots of Black Backed Wagtails. A lone Olive Backed Pipit and a couple of Varied Tit were the only other passerines..............oh and lots of Common Tern on the sea here too.  Both the above pics were taken without the scope as the birds were so tame. Digiscoping with my new camera is proving a bit frustrating. It should be better than my old one but I'm struggling a bit. Here's an absolutely dire pic of the Goshawk. Heavily cropped and photoshopped and this was as good as it gets.  We went to Kamiso today. Common Tern was present here as well (and was a local tick too-my 165th bird in Hakodate) and bird of the weekend was a juvenile Hobby being mobbed by the much larger Carrion Crows. A pair of Tufted Duck and 3 Teal were the first of the winter down here. Here's a couple of slightly dodgy pics of the Common Tern and Grey Heron at Kamiso. Bad. But not as bad as the Goshawk.   The Heron at least offers some hope for my new camera. 21:41 - 24/9/2006 - comments {3} - post commentPost-typhoon birding Yet another Tattler pic from earlier in the week. This was with my new camera which is theoretically better than my old one but the jury's out on that one for the time being. This was from 2 or 3 days before a biggish typhoon hit Hakodate on Monday and Tuesday. Some high winds and a lot of rain and waves crashing over the seawalls. Not a single interesting bird was blown in except for a few bedraggled looking Gulls. 2 years ago there was a seriously big typhoon that knocked out the electricity in town for a whole day and blew over thousands of trees. Today was my 38th birthday and we went to Yakumo. The autumn Duck passage has begun-lots of Pintails and Wigeons. Only 2 kinds of wader-Common Sandpiper and a lone Red Necked Stint. Bird of the day was an immature Eastern Marsh Harrier. Lots of Japanese Green Pigeons on the rocky coastline flying down from the forested hills to drink seawater. Unfortunately there's absolutely nowhere to park nearby so it's out of the question to get a picture (Route 5 is a busy road). Even from a speeding car they were beautiful. Other birds from the car today included Pacific Swift, Northern Sparrowhawk and lots and lots of Oriental Turtle Doves. At Shikabe there were about 40 Common Tern offshore (Terns are pretty scarce round these parts). A final stop at Onuma produced Little Grebe, Stub Tailed Bush Warbler and an unidentified Thrush (probably Grey Thrush). 21:55 - 20/9/2006 - comments {0} - post commentMore waders in Japan One of the same group of Tattlers in Kamiso as yesterday. We went to Yakumo this morning in the hope of seeing some waders. Yakumo is by far the best wader habitat in the region. Naturally there were no waders at all (well almost none except for a lone Common Sandpiper). It was a beautiful autumn day but not so many birds were showing. A few smaller birds on the move included Hawfinch, Stonechat and Japanese White-eye. Lots of Grey Heron and some Black Browed Reed Warblers were still tutting away in the slowly dwindling vegetation. Litle Grebe, Ospreys and a few Hirundines too. A moulting Slavonian Grebe was bird of the day. Just south of Yakumo were a couple of Greenshank, a few Japanese Green Pigeon, a female Harlequin Duck and loads of Oriental Turtle Doves. We drove over to Asabu which was similarly almost birdless. A lone Long-billed Plover and lots of Oriental Greenfinch, a Little grebe, a single Whooper swan and a single Goldeneye.............. So we ended up back at Kamiso with yesterday's Tattlers and Stints. A Sanderling took the place of yesterday's Terek Sandpipers. The day ended with a new camera (which I'll try to break in tommorrow). Gave me a bit of a headache trying to match it up with my various adapters and stuff. I'll resume my fiddling and cursing tommorrow. Here's a pic of one of the Red Necked Stints in the exact same place as yesterday.  The very last pic of my first digital camera........... 01:49 - 14/9/2006 - comments {0} - post commentJapanese Waders One of quite a few Grey Tailed Tattler in Hakodate this afternoon. This particular bunch were in Kamiso where there were the unprecedented (for around here) number of FIVE species of wader. In addition to the Tattlers were several Red Necked Stint (see below), 1 or 2 Terek Sandpiper, 1 Whimbrel and 1 Common Sandpiper.  Also present here were Little Grebe, Common Kingfisher, Stonechat, Grey Heron and a lone male Mandarin Duck still clinging on to its summer glory. A quiet September up until today. A male Ruff (not in breeding plumage alas) was a surprise on the beach in front of a ghastly pachinko parlour. The habitat for waders is pretty sparse around here so most of the time I just see individuals or small groups if I'm lucky. A lone Pacific Golden Plover was the highlight at Yakumo on the 3rd. A few of the resident Blue Rock Thrush and Peregrine have been around in Hakodate but so far autumn migration hasn't kicked in yet.   Ghastly game for Liverpool last weekend. Saw an interesting movie recently. "The life and death of Peter Sellers" I think it was called. 21:41 - 12/9/2006 - comments {0} - post commentEnd of August in northern Japan A pretty boring pic of Grey Heron plus a couple of Temincks Cormorants at Kamiso this afternoon. A Little Grebe was the only noteworthy bird here. Earlier on we drove up to Yakumo to check for waders. 2 Terek Sandpiper, a few Common Sandpiper and 3 juvenile charadrius Plovers (Little Ringed or Long Billed) were the only waders present. Also about were Osprey, Little Egret, Grey Thrush, Japanese Green Pigeon and all the usual common stuff I've been seeing over the summer. Amongst all the raggedy juvenile Gulls, eclipse Ducks and immature Herons was a Herring Gull. The first since May. Further down the coast we stopped at Sawara. This is (was) a well-known place for Gyrfacons (I never saw them unfortunately) which used to overwinter there as well as several other raptors and various wintry birds of open spaces. Lots of commoner stuff around here. Sundry Buntings and Stonechats and unidentified Cuckoos. Bird of the day was a very briefly glimpsed juvenile Ruddy Crake running across the dirt track in front of the car. 2 lifers in 2 days. 01:29 - 31/8/2006 - comments {0} - post commentGreat Knot A pic of a Great Knot this afternoon on the tiny beach at Kamiso. Actually this is a lifer for me although it's a little dull to look at. Waders generally are a bit thin on the ground around Hakodate and this was the first local one of the Autumn. Not much else at Kamiso. An eclipse male Mallard was the first passage Duck of the season and there were also about a dozen or so Black Headed Gull.  Went to Asabu on Sunday and was surprised to see lone Goldeneye and Whooper Swan. I'd half seen a dodgy looking diving Duck a couple of weeks ago and I guess this was the same individual. Both species may have oversummered. Also present were Stonechat and Osprey but not much else. A final pic of the Great Knot. It looks cold but was in fact a warm humid cloudy day with thunder in the air.  Recent music recommendations are an excellent dub/ambient remix of the Ruts "Babylon's Burning"entitled "Black Star Liner" (or maybe that's the name of the band-god knows) and "fast man" by Frank Black. 20:25 - 29/8/2006 - comments {0} - post comment
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