A very very quiet time at the moment: for various reasons I haven’t been out much and even when I do there aren’t many birds around. 2022 has been a bit of a slow year across the board.
Here are a few common local birds from the last few days.
Most winters we either have flocks of Waxwings or flocks of Crossbills. Or both. Or if not maybe Redpolls, Bullfinches…
Not so lucky this year. Only Dusky Thrushes…
A Brambling snacking on Dusky Thrush poop in town today…
There were loads of Dusky Thrush last week in Hakodate but most appear to have gone. Nothing interesting among them. And they ate all the berries so if any Waxwings do make it to my neighbourhood this winter there won’t be much food for them.
Not much else around: Sparrowhawk, Goshawk and Hawfinch being the most noteworthy.
It has stopped snowing at last…
Some staples from this time of year. It’s been a fairly quiet week………….
Some more photos with the R5/100-400LM1/1.4X combo.
In addition to the Crossbills there were quite a few other things around too. Best of all was an adult Steller’s Sea Eagle that briefly shot past (only the second one I’ve ever seen in Hakodate) and there were also Brambling. Siskin, Redpoll, Coal Tit, Wren, Peregrine and Common Goldeneye.
Lots of Dusky Thrush too…………
And this is a real ‘dirtbird’ in Japan……………
In among the Crossbills (and Redpolls) were other winter passerines……….
Also around were Hawfinch, Brambling as well as various tits and woodpeckers, Eurasian Jay and Dusky Thrush.
Several White-tailed and at least 3 (!) Steller’s Sea Eagles were in the Esan area in addition to Eastern Buzzard, Peregrine and 2 Mountain Hawk-Eagles too.
Lots of Dusky Thrush passing through town this week. I’ve seen both Fieldfare and Naumann’s Thrush this month but yesterday there were only the bog-standard Duskys……….
Nice light at least.
Waxwings are still visiting the local park but as food resources are disappearing fast they are encountering a new problem: Dusky Thrushes.
They compete for the same food and I guess the Thrushes see Waxwings as rivals (they leave the Bramblings and Hawfinches in peace). They aggressively chase the Waxwings away.
I had no idea Dusky Thrushes could be such b*****ds.
There were still some Waxwings around yesterday, here are the 3 other species that have been in the same places………
There was also a Long-tailed Rosefinch in the park but no pictures.
A Dusky Thrush near my apartment yesterday. Not many birds in town at all: Wren, Eastern Great Tit, Common Teal…………….only. In Kamiiso there were the usual common winter species with the addition of a couple of Smew. In the sky there were several groups of geese flying north. Bean Goose and White-fronted Goose, nothing rarer. At Onuma there were 3 White-tailed Eagles and a few Pintail in among the duck flock.