Last uploads from the trip…
2022 Summer Road Trip #22
Category: East Hokkaido
2022 Summer Road Trip #21
One of the commonest birds on the capes and grasslands in east/north Hokkaido…
2022 Summer Road Trip #20
Rubythroats still seemed reasonably common around Kiritappu.
And there were plenty of Reed Buntings too.
2022 Summer Road Trip #19
The last day of the rip was near Kiritappu and there were lots of Pacific Swifts in the foggy skies.
2022 Summer Road Trip #18
Crappy pics (due to my own poor technique, a bucking boat and fog) but I got some nice views of this very rare bird (in Japan).
There were also several Sea Otters: kind of like a cross between a Seal and a Rat.
2022 Summer Road Trip #17
There was a small flock of Spectacled Guillemots at Ochiishi…
2022 Summer Road Trip #16
We did the Ochiishi boat trip. It was pretty foggy but we saw plenty of birds. This Brunnich’s Guillemot posed nicely close to the boat.
The commonest alcids were Rhinoceros Auklets and Spectacled Guillemots and we also saw Ancient Murrelet, Northern Fulmar, Red-necked Pharalope and Sooty (or Short-tailed?) Shearwater.
I was hoping to get a shot of a Tufted Puffin. I’d seen one on this trip before but couldn’t get a photo. We didn’t see any this time but we did manage to see this Horned Puffin. Crappest of crappy pics but a lifer…
2022 Summer Road Trip #15
The fog lifted slightly…
2022 Summer Road Trip #14
We moved east to the Nemuro area. There were more Rubythroats here than on the north coast…
It was foggy and humid here.
A late autumn trip #11
Apart from the geese it was a pretty quiet trip birdwise. The above Marsh Sandpiper was a surprise and we saw lots of raptors including my first Steller’s Sea Eagles of the winter. Winter ducks and gulls are returning to various locales, autumn will end in a couple of weeks.
A late autumn trip #10
(Taiga?) Bean Geese were also common in Urahoro….
A late autumn trip #9
On the second say we couldn’t get near the Snow Geese…
They are very easy to pick out among the Grey Geese, as you can see here:
Greater White-fronted Geese are generally the most numerous species near Hakodate but this is not the case in Urahoro. Here are some adults and juveniles together.
