A sunny morning

Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker

On the way to the dentist this morning we saw a flock of waxwings and when I was done I went back to the side street from yesterday but nothing doing there.

The small park nearby had a 5 Long-tailed Rosefinch and a few other commoner species and I did see a Peregrine dramatically snatch a pigeon (no photos sadly).

Eurasian Nuthatch

Not only crossbills

Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker

I’ve been focused on the crossbills and waxwings in town in recent weeks but there are still other species around.

Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker

In case you were wondering the other species in town on my walks in the last month or so have been: Great Egret, Grey Heron, Whooper Swan, Eastern Spot-billed Duck, Mallard, Tufted Duck, Common Teal, Pochard, Goosander, Common Goldeneye, Falcated Duck, Eurasian Wigeon, Slaty-backed Gull, Vega Gull, White-tailed Eagle, Peregrine, Eastern Buzzard, Eurasian Kestrel, Black Kite, Eurasian Sparrowhawk, Common Kingfisher, Pygmy Woodpecker, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Grey-headed Woodpecker, Brown Dipper, Eurasian Wren, Eurasian Tree Sparrow, Eurasian Nuthatch, Marsh Tit, Varied Tit, Japanese Tit, Coal Tit, Brown-eared Bulbul, Dusky Thrush, Daurian Redstart, Large-billed Crow, Carrion Crow, Eurasian Jay, Oriental Greenfinch, Brambling, Hawfinch, Long-tailed Rosefinch, Common Redpoll. And of course Common Crossbill, White-winged Crossbill, Bohemian Waxwing and Japanese Waxwing.

I think that’s all…

Nearly done

Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker

Probably my last outing of 2024. The end of the year has been very good in town. Which is good because for various reasons I haven’t been able to do much traveling the last 3 or 4 months.

No crossbills, not even flyovers…and no waxwings anywhere. But nice light and some common species made it a pleasant stroll around the neighbourhood.

Eurasian Nuthatch
Hawfinch

A Goshawk in town

Goshawk

I’ve been walking around the neighbourhood this week looking for Waxwings with no success. But I did see this juvenile/first-winter Goshawk nab a pigeon.

Annoyingly my R5 froze as it flew off (this happens occasionally: very frustrating for such an expensive camera). Maybe it made no difference as the AF on my ancient 100-400L M1 is very sluggish on the R5.

F***ing twigs.

Goshawk

Also around were Eastern Buzzard, Winter Wren, 10 or so Dusky Thrush, a male Goosander and this Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker in the local park.

Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker

Another wet Sunday

Peregrine

Still really mild. We were out east today: a few interesting things around but not great for photography. The above Peregrine posed nicely and there were also several White-tailed Eagle around, a lone Mountain Hawk-Eagle and 000’s of Black-legged Kittiwakes offshore.

Here’s a common local species: you can see it’s a male by the red flash on its head.

Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker