I may not get back to this location again this summer. Maybe in 2 weeks…wonder if the young will already be flying then?
Feeding Time
Author: Stuart Price
Osprey Update
The Osprey chicks have grown a lot in only 2 weeks…
The female looked at the end of her tether: constantly mobbed by Black-tailed Gulls (one of which crapped all over her).
A grey day in midsummer
Some birds from town today…a grey, foggy,humid Sunday afternoon in mid June.
Some SMIFs
Some Sand Martin-in-flight pics…
Some Sand Martins
There was a Sand Martin colony near where we stayed last weekend…
Not a species I photograph often.
Finally!
Near Tomakomai last weekend I finally got a shot of one of the most difficult to photograph local birds. Sakhalin Grasshopper Warblers are common summer visitors to the grasslands and their song can be heard everywhere in suitable habitat. I’ve been trying for years to get a shot. They are extremely skulking. But then one above popped up and sang atop a bush for a few seconds!
A few minutes earlier I’d been delighted with this lame effort, the first time I’d ever photographed it.
There were several Siberian Rubythroat around but they were also skulking. Other stuff included Masked, Chestnut-eared and Common Reed Buntings, Long-tailed Rosefinch, Eastern Crowned Warbler, Japanese Thrush, Black-browed Reed Warbler and lots and lots of Stonechats…
A drizzly Saturday
A wet miserable White-tailed Eagle on a wet miserable Saturday afternoon near Mukawa.
Lathams’s Snipe habitats have been damaged by the absurd number of solar farms spring up all the time and replacing grassland.
Plus they’re difficult to perch on…see how this one slid all the way down.
This perch the next morning was slightly better…
That time of year
The Stonechats are watching their fledglings in the nearby grass and don’t fly off…
This scene is repeated tens of thousands of times in the grasslands of Hokkaido in early summer.
Quiet in town
Pretty quiet now in town. The Chestnut-cheeked Starlings (male above, from this afternoon) are busy feeding their young but not much else about. In the past week or 2 I didn’t take my camera out when going for a walk. Black-crowned Night Heron and Peregrine were the most noteworthy birds.
Yet more Ospreys
I probably won’t be seeing them for 2 or 3 weeks, the young will be much bigger then I imagine.
More Ospreys
Nothing else really posing for photos so here are some more Ospreys from Sunday…
This shot was before the sun came out…
Mobbed
Black-tailed Gulls make terrible neighbours…
