A very quiet week…a few common birds only around town; just 1 Common Crossbill, Japanese Bush Warbler, Masked Bunting, Asian House Martin, Bull-headed Shrike and a few Coal Tits.
In Yakumo today there were a few waders; Kentish Plover, Common Snipe, Pacific Golden Plover and this lone Red-necked Stint being the most noteworthy.
Also around were the Greater White-fronted Geese flock, various common ducks, lots of Stonechat and my first Chestnut-cheeked Starling of the year.
There were 3 of these, presumably stragglers from the big flocks. Also Gadwall, Mandarin and various other common ducks and several species of gulls including these 2 looking nice in summer plumage.
Some one turned the tap off; no more crossbills or other interesting birds near my flat anymore…
The last 2 days saw beautiful weather with a few birds around west of town. I was waiting for a Red-necked Grebe in summer plumage to come close. It didn’t but some of its common relatives did.
The on-tap parade of photogenic local birds seems to have dried up. Onuma had both swans and Greater White-fronted Geese yesterday but was otherwise a bit quiet.
No crossbills for several days now. Just a few Dusky Thrush around and the resident woodpeckers…
Spring migration is just around the corner at least.
Lots of osprey around yesterday and also the first Stonechats of the year, the first singing Japanese Bush Warblers, the first Little Ringed Plover…
There was a flock of 100 or so Greater White-fronted Geese at Yakumo, Gadwall, Shoveler and some sunset swans…
The fog cleared briefly…
The fog meant I used the dehaze slider a lot on these…
I changed to my big lens but it was still foggy…
There were lots of Slavonian Grebes around in various stages of transition…
The only one that came close was still in winter plumage of course.
Amazingly I get my first ever grebe BIFs…
It was warm and sunny in Hakodate this morning and we headed north to catch the port birds before they depart…
Only problem was it was foggy. I used the RF 600 f/11 lens at first thinking I’d switch to my ‘serious’ lens on the way back when the fog cleared…
Close-up birds were just about manageable.
After a few minutes the flock moved on…some different individuals briefly came to ground.
Doing what nuthatches do…
