Well it’s been nearly 2 weeks gone already in 2012 so here’s 2 photos………….
Stellers Sea Eagle at Yakumo January 8th 2012.
And a Ural Owl in Onuma from January 2nd 2012.
I’m restarting this blog after 5 years with just 1 photo a week. My main blog is here.
A Stellers Sea Eagle at Yakumo in January. It’s been a very mild winter so far with much less snow than usual and temperatures above freezing almost every day. Onuma Lake is still frozen however and here’s another Eagle looking pensive on the ice last week.
The tame flock of Nuthatch and paridae have been present all winter at Onuma.
And the Owl at Onuma from December was a bit more revealing in the New Year.
The usual winter waterbirds/seabirds have been around. Here are some Japanese Cormorant and a Brent Goose at Menagwa from January.
A Daurian Jackdaw near Hakodate on Jan 1st was a lifer. It was with a large flock of Rooks which were new to my Hokkaido list. The only other new addition to my Hokkaido list was an Ancient Murrelet in January. This Bean Goose (together with a Whitefronted Goose) was new to my Oshima list.
A big influx of Japanese and Bohemian Waxwings were the main highlight of winter near my flat. Other interesting local birds have included a Thayers Gull, Merlin and White Tailed Eagle.
More info on my new blog here
NewYear is a big vacation in Japan. Quite similar to Xmas in the west. Lots of places closed, you get drunk with family members, eat too much, put cheesy decorations up, send meaningless cards to people you never actually see anymore, watch absolutely crappy “light entertainment”on TV and miss work for a week or so. God it is the same.
2 Brent Geese in one of the local fishing harbours on New Years Eve. This particular harbour is at the foot of Hakodateyama near the docks. It smells a bit squidy because of all the seafood processing plants. It's also ALWAYS very cold, windy and exposed making photography a bit tricky especially with an impatient driver waiting to leave the area asap.
Still can't get a decent shot of a Harlequin Duck. They are always here (along with the Geese) in winter. There are also a variety of Gulls. Today the most interesting was this adult Glaucous Winged.
So that's that. 2006 is over. I got 143 species on my local patch. I digiscoped with varying results for the first time (today's seem no better than 12 months ago though!). I saw Brown Bears and visited some new places in Hokkaido. I quit smoking. I watched some awful sporting performances by my favourite teams.
My new blog is here
Not a very successful day photo-wise. A White Tailed Eagle at Yakumo yesterday. The Stellers this winter have all decided to perch in places where motorists can't stop and where pedestrians can't safely stand either. Lots of the usual commoner winter stuff around today. Goshawk, Glaucous and 6 other species of Gull, various Tits and other commoner small birds, Whooper Swans, lots of Ducks and loads of grebes on the sea. Bobbing around hundreds of yards offshore these can be tricky to ID sometimes. Black Necked, Red Necked and Slavonian were all present.
A Slavonian Grebe. This female Peregrine was worrying all the gulls and Ducks.
The above pic especially shows digiscoping only works when you can get quite close to a bird. The Peregrine wasn't that far away but still way too far for a nice pic. Maybe I should have waved a dead pigeon around (or picked up a rotting Salmon for the Eagles) and I could have gotten these eating from my hand too.
I didn't follow the cricket when we were driving around yesterday. When I left the house Australia were batting. When I got back England had lost.
This blog will be wrapped up on Dec 31st. My new blog will be at the link to the right.
A nice wintry scene from Onuma this afternoon. If you think Christmas in the west is a shallow, artificial souless experience you should come to Japan. They have all the annoying things here (crappy carols and oldie Christmas hits in shops, cheesy decorations everywhere etc) but none of the good things (good TV shows, time off work, gifts etc). They religiously go to Kentucky Fried Chicken on the 25th. Honestly.
1 of 3 Whitefronts at Kamiso this morning. Some pretty good stuff around despite most of the river being frozen. Whooper Swans, several species of Duck, 2 Great White Egret and over 20 Grey Heron, Coot (rare up here), Slavonian, Black Necked and Red Necked Grebes on the sea and some unidentifiable Divers way out. A female Peregrine swooped down low over the river and grabbed a Teal for Xmas lunch.
We had our own xmas lunch over at Onuma. This is one of the extremely tame Whooper Swans that overwinter at Onuma. Also around were all the common woodland stuff from last week (not as co-operative photo-wise today), 2 White Tailed Eagle, Little Grebe and Goldeneye. This Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker was not tame at all and was almost directly above the Scope and the sun was at a difficult angle too.
Not much around in Hakodate these last few days, Hawfinch, Dusky Thrush, Daurian Redstart were among the typical winter birds. I'll try and get a decent Stellers Sea Eagle pic at Yakumo as my last meaningful birding task this year.
Another day spent with the exceedingly tame birds at Onuma. This is the Hokkaido race of the common or garden Eurasian Nuthatch. They were part of a mixed flock of paridae and similar woodland foraging species. As well as the Nuthatches there were Eurasian Treecreepers, Marsh, Long Tailed, Great and Varied Tits. Eurasian Jay and the 3 commoner Woodpecker species were also present.
These images were digiscoped. If I ever get a place out in the country I'm going to get the most kick-arse bird table/feeding station and set up my (much better than now) Scope/Camera on it all day. The Nuthatch was easy to photograph today but the other species proved a bit trickier. Here's a Marsh Tit.
Both the above 2 species and Varied Tit weren't shy at all and hopped into my hands to peck the seeds we brought with us. Here's a couple of pics of Nuthatches-the first one is my hand (I held the camera with the other hand) and the second is my wife's hand.
The Ural Owl I photographed a couple of weeks ago was present today too and was a bit more conspicious than last time.
It seemed to be a lot more awake today.
A bit less like a cuddly toy.
It flew off just as the sun had gone down (about 4.45pm) and the road began to freeze over. Here's a wintry scene at Onuma. The frozen lake is in the foreground and Mt Komagadake is in the background.
The lake isn't completely frozen yet (about 30% seemed to be ice-free). Global warming? After last winter's extremes in Hokkaido it's a pleasant change anyway. The flock of Whooper Swans was present today. A few individuals have been on the lake for a while but the main group must have arrived in the last 2 or 3 days. They are well fed by the locals (and tourists). They don't really have feral Mute Swans over here so they can get excited by the Swans more than a cynical Brit bider might.
The Ashes debacle is a fitting end to a nightmare sporting year for the various teams I follow (with the exception of Carlisle Utd's promotion. My birthplace although I left when I was 5). 2007 will be better won't it?
A female Grey Headed Woodpecker at Onuma this afternoon. There were some amazingly tame birds around today. I gave up digiscoping after a Nuthatch perched on my Scope! Someone had left sunflower seeds out for the birds out in the forest and I had Marsh Tit, Nuthtach and Varied Tit perched on my hand eating the seeds. It was amazingly difficult to get a decent shot as it was a bit dark and the birds were hyperactive. Here's my wife with a Varied Tit in her hand.
The pic above was sharpened in photoshop. The focus on the camera was particularly frustrating. The camera focuses on the background not the foreground (I forgot to readjust the settings). Here's an unedited one (with my hand).
The Marsh Tit and Nuthatch pics were even more blurry and out of focus. Elsewhere in Onuma were Bullfinch, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Whooper Swan and Jay as well as the usual commoner Ducks.
Earlier we were in Yakumo to try and get some shots of the Eagles. Lots of Stellers in nice unobstructed poses but unfortunately none were near anywhere we could safely park (the road width decreases markedly in winter as snow piles up at the sides and seafood bearing trucks speed by every 2 or 3 minutes). Last winter there was a car park with great views of the Eagles but today there was only 1 in the same place. This was the immature Stellers below which was hiding behind some branches anyway.
Not much else at Yakumo as it was only a brief stop. We started the day at Kamiso. It was bitterly cold next to the sea but in the brief time we stopped I got Glaucous Winged Gull, several species of Duck including lots of Goosander and lots of Grebes out to sea (mostly Red Necked and Black Necked though a few may have been Slavonian).
Got back and checked the Test score expecting England to have lost and was amazed they hadn't. Mind you they lost 2 wickets at the end just as I started to listen to the online commentary. If England can rescue this I may think Liverpool have a chance against Barcelona.
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.
A Ural Owl peering out of a tree at Onuma this afternoon. The weather has turned really cold and there's a lot of snow around. The Owl was only 30 or so yards off the road. It didn't look bothered by me (or the other 3 birders taking pics) or by the subzero temperatures. Not much else at Onuma. Japanese Wagtail, Nuthatch, Dusky Thrush and lots of commoner Ducks on the water including hundreds of Goosander. The lake will be 99% frozen over in a week or 2 and most of the Ducks will have flown south (a few stay-there is one ice-free area they'll share with the Whooper Swans which weren't around today).
At Kamiso in the morning there were 6 species of Gull, 3 Whitefronted Geese, a Common Buzzard, Sparrowhawk and a Peregrine, a few Ducks (most seem to have moved south already) and 9 very cold looking Grey Heron. Scaup, Goldeneye and a few Black Necked Grebes were on the sea. On the other side of the bay I tried to take some pics of the Harlequin Ducks. These are surprisingly hard (for me) to take good photos of. The camera just can't seem to focus. I don't know why. They look stunning thru the Scope. This male was the best and the photo is completely unphotoshopped. Sharpening makes it look worse if anything. It was extremely cold, windy and exposed here which made patience an impossibility.
Looks like a draw in Adelaide. Liverpool scored and won away too.
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.
A pic of Onuma this afternoon. A lazy hungover kind of Sunday (in my 20's/early 30's EVERY Sunday was like this). Very mild too. It'll get cold in a week or 2 (we changed our tyres to winter tyres yesterday) and then the snow and ice will be present until the middle or end of March. Not much of interest at Onuma-just the usual common woodland species including this Marsh Tit and Nuthatch.
The birds were pretty tame. These pics were taken by my wife with a normal compact camera (not attached to a Scope or anything) and cropped and sharpened on my computer. Not bad actually. I'm more kindly disposed to the previously derided Nikon P4 now.
In Kamiso more of the same autumn stuff as per recently plus Pelagic Cormorant, Black Scoter, Smew and Black Necked Grebe. Small numbers of Dusky Thrush and Daurian Redstart passing through Hakodate this week are a sure sign winter is on the way.
Lots of interesting sport on TV last night but it was all on at the same time! And tonight-nothing.
If anyone wants a brand new KOWA 50mm ED Scope for xmas I know just the thing for you. Go to e-bay and find the aforementioned item and make a sensible offer to the charming seller. Go on.
An adult Stellers Sea Eagle at Yakumo this morning. There were about 10 or so Stellers and a dozen or so White Tailed Eagles on hillsides of the Yurappu River. Annual visitors, they'll peak at about 60-70 individuals (with slightly more White Taileds) when winter starts to bite. Often they perch obligingly quite close to a Car Park near the river but not today-this bird was a couple of hundred yards away.
This is the usual view of the Eagles. They're after the Salmon, which are abundant in the river.
3 Stellers and 1 White Tailed. Other stuff upstream included Brown Dipper, Japanese Wagtail, Goosander, Marsh Tit and Eurasian Jay. Downstream at the rivermouth not so many winter birds were in evidence-a few Goldeneye, Scaup, lots of Pintail and these Great White Egrets (there were 13 in all). This species seems to be regular around here in late autumn/early winter. Where do they come from? I'm not sure they breed in Hokkaido. Eastern Russia perhaps?
Snow on the hills and most of the vegetation is as dead as Liverpool's title challenge.