Not good photos but there was a flock of terns at Yakumo yesterday. Terns are pretty thin on the ground in Hokkaido and are always worth a second look.
There were 30 or so Common Terns: the east Asian race looks very different to the ones I remember seeing on the river in Preston.
There were also 2 White-winged Black Terns including this adult. Shame it didn’t come close enough for a worthwhile shot. The light was terrible anyway.
Apparently a Gull-billed Tern was at Yakumo last week too……….
Not a great photo but a pretty scarce bird. I saw the above male Yellow-browed Bunting in one of the parks just outside town this morning. It was hopping unobtrusively around in the shade and I noticed it in the distance and though oh right just another Black-faced Bunting. I pointed my camera at it, noticed the head pattern and thought it was a Rustic Bunting at first but then the bird’s head caught the sun and I saw the yellow eyebrow……….
Difficult to get close to but I was very happy to see it: my 4th lifer of 2020.
A lifer from this afternoon: 3 Lesser White-fronted Geese to the north of town.
There were lots of geese flying around. They all seemed to be Greater White-fronted Geese. I fired off some shots but got a bit bored (I was waiting in vain for a Lapwing, a scarce bird here, to come close). Then 3 flew right over me against a blue sky and I thought it might make a nice pic. Whilst waiting for the aforementioned Lapwing I checked the day’s photos so far and then I noticed the 3 yellow eye-rings and the 3 cute pink stubby bills.
There were still plenty of Redpolls around last weekend…………
And here’s another shot of the Fieldfare on Sunday. I went back on Monday morning but couldn’t relocate it. Apparently there has been a bit of an influx of this species into Hokkaido this winter………
Not a good photo at all but it does show a Fieldfare: a rare bird in Japan and one I found late this afternoon. Very dark and it was very skittish too, this was the best I could manage. Hope it is in the same place tomorrow.
This blog is showing many performance issues: pages not loading, photos not appearing etc. I’m trying to fix it.
Not a great photo at all but the above Northern Grey Shrike near Yakumo was my first lifer of the decade……….
It’s a scarce winter visitor to Japan. I think I saw one about 12 or 13 years ago: a Shrike species flashed in front of the car just before sundown on an early January evening. I assumed Bullheaded Shrike but in subsequent years I have seen the grand total of one of those in winter.
A split from Great Grey Shrike (which I saw in Lancashire over 30 years ago) so a lifer it is too.