The lone Steller’s Sea Eagle at the rivermouth in Yakumo was still there at the weekend and it still looks as hungry and skinny as ever.
We saw a much healthier looking one in Oshamambe and kept driving past it thinking I could could photograph it later. By the time I had finished with the Snow Bunting we went back and of course that eagle had gone…
A Smew at Onuma taken with the 2X T/C. It looks OK (ish) at low resolution.
But brutal at full-size.
One last eagle pic from the weekend (without T/C).
Never really seen them do this down here in SW Hokkaido. I guess they’re really hungry. Or maybe they do this every early morning in this spot and I’m never there to see it..?
On the way back some Sanderlings were in their usual spot too.
Not many blue skies recently but Monday was an exception…
I didn’t get many flight shots at the weekend: they almost always flew off in the wrong direction or when I wasn’t ready.
Some distance north of Yakumo there is another good birding spot where there are normally a few eagles in winter. Usually 1 Steller’s and several White-taileds. These are probably more ‘generalist’ feeders that at Yakumo and are not so tied to a single food source. Hardly any at Yakumo now due to the lack of salmon this year.
A couple of days ago there were at least adult 3 Steller’s there. Were 1 or 2 of these refugees from Yakumo?
There were 2 or 3 Steller’s Sea Eagles at the place where we slept in the car….
Never seen them in town like this in SW Hokkaido, very surprising.
This one was more natural…
This eagle always returns to the same spot every year. It’s not in Yakumo so I guess it’s not tied to the salmon stocks so much. It looked in relatively fine fettle anyway.
Usually late December/early January sees dozens of eagles at the rivermouth at Yakumo: flying to and fro and squabbling over salmon carcasses. But due to the lack of salmon last autumn the river is eerily quiet. Just one eagle was in view. And it didn’t look particularly well-fed as you can see.
We had a 3 day trip to the Mukawa area but it was very very flat for birds. A few White-tailed Eagles (like the one above) but no geese, hardly any winter gulls or ducks and no winter raptors except for a lone Merlin and Goshawk. neither of which posed for photos.
On the way back Yakumo was very quiet due to the lack of eagle food but there were a few eagles around at least.
Stupid frickin’ twigs.
I only saw one swimming salmon in the river. Normally there are thousands of them. There were a few corpses at least: I suspect these may have been earlier arrivals which entered the river before the ‘red tide’ affected salmon already in the sea?
The Eagles are more difficult to approach early in the season and I usually don’t get any decent photos until mid to late December. I wonder of they’ll still be around then?
There were already some eagles at Yakumo yesterday: about 10-15 of both species. None close enough for a decent photo as is always the case in early November.
Worryingly there are very few salmon in the river. We barely saw any. I’d head there was a mass die off in east Hokkaido last month due to ‘red tide’ plankton blocking oxygen in seawater. I don’t know if this reached down here but maybe combined with warming sea temperatures it could have a devastating impact on the eagles’ primary winter food source.
If that is the case they may not be around long this winter.