
The last day with the geese didn’t yield many memorable photos…

But there were at least 2 adult blue phase Snow Geese and 1 (maybe 2) juveniles too.
Heavy crop here…

Most of the time the geese were either in the middle of a big field, roosting on water or flying around.
But on the second afternoon the main flock (almost all Snow and Cackling Geese) came to a sweetcorn field of stubble right by the side of the road and I was the only person there.
Not a great pic but this bird caused quite a stir when it pitched up in Yakumo last month. A friend of ours found it out but didn’t know what it was so he sent me a photo. I got there a couple of days later and took some not-very-good pics.
This species is very rare in this part of the world, especially this far south and in summer. Not to mention it’s on the wrong side of the Pacific. In the UK it would have been instantly (and probably rightly) dismissed as an escape. But here…well maybe not. There are no big collections of exotic wildfowl in Japan and to be honest it is just as likely (or even more so ) to be a wild bird. Maybe it has wandered over to this side of the Pacific and wintered somewhere else in northeast Asia and then turned up in Yakumo. Who knows?
Anyway it stuck around for a couple of weeks with an equally lost-looking Greater White-fronted Goose and then seemingly disappeared again. Maybe we’ll never know its true origin. But I’m going to tick it…
I just can’t escape geese: this lone straggling White-front was in parkland atop a cape!
The Ospreys have returned…not great pics it has to be said.
And near my apartment all the snow has gone…
Other birds around on Monday in the Esan area were Glaucous-winged Gull, Harlequin Duck, lots of Brent Goose and a lone White-tailed Eagle.