
A dark, grey snowy Sunday with some common winter birds to match…


We headed west today hoping to find some interesting birds blown in by the strong west wind. We couldn’t find anything but there were lots of divers on the sea. Red-throated, Black-throated and Pacific………..and all but this individual were too far off for any photos……….
Very dark yesterday so crap for photos but a few interesting birds around: various grebes including a couple of hundred Great Cresteds, several Black-throated Diver, a lone White-tailed Eagle, lots of Brent Geese and huge numbers of Common Gull.
And my first Osprey of the year too.
A very slow last 2 weeks. Not Covid19 related. I had a dodgy knee, a wisdom tooth extracted and the weather has not been great either. All my birding luck from the first 3 months of 2020 appears to have run out: very few interesting birds around in south Hokkaido at the moment.
The above Black-throated Diver was near town today. Yesterday at Yakumo a single Ruff was the most interesting bird and today out west there was nothing noteworthy anywhere. The Crossbills have all vanished too.
Various summer visitors have shown though……..Siberian Stonechat, Asian House Martin and Japanese Bush Warbler among them.