A crap photo but quite a scarce bird in north Japan and the 300th species I’ve seen in Hokkaido.
A Chinese Pond Heron west of town today. It flew off and disappeared into the trees before I could get a decent shot.
Not much else around: lots of Osprey fishing off the coast, a couple of stray Great Scaup, flocks of Japanese Green Pigeon etc.
Large numbers of Black-tailed Gulls were hunting flying ants everywhere.
A very windy day today after a lot of rain yesterday.
Not many birds around, the above Diver was still on the river to the west of town and there were lots of Common Gull at the river mouths and in the ports too.
Glaucous Gulls are very common at this time of year and often hang around in the ports and on the beaches.
BIF shots are tricky as they only fly off if you get quite close and at that distance 500mm is often too much reach.
Difficult to get a clean background sometimes too.
Lots of Glaucous Gulls at this time of year. Why do they always look so angry?
A Slavonian Grebe west of Hakodate yesterday. It was the first time in a while I’d been out that way. Nothing especially noteworthy: Black-necked and Red-necked Grebes, lots of ducks and gulls, a lone Common Redpoll, a group of 9 Great Egret………
There are lots of Glaucous Gulls on the beaches at this time of year, the above one was at Oshamanbe last Monday.
The Scallop boats were busy in the harbours and there were a lot of Gulls waiting for handouts………..
For me, Crossbills were the most interesting things in Oshamanbe but there were other things too……….
The Common Starling was still around.
The Slavonian Grebe and Black-throated Diver from last week were also present. I couldn’t get a photo of the latter but a Slaty-backed Gull stole its fish…………
Flocks of Stenjeger’s Scoter were offshore and other good stuff today included a few White-tailed and Steller’s Sea Eagles, 2 Long-tailed Duck, Black Scoter and other common ducks, Whooper Swan, Great Egret, Eastern Buzzard and a big flock of Waxwings on the outskirts of Hakodate.
Some common winter port birds from Oshamanbe today.
We were up north today checking one of the ports. The most interesting bird was a Black-throated Diver but it was too far away for a photo. There were the usual common ducks in the harbour though.
And a few gulls too.
Apart from the eagles birding was a bit quiet today. Glaucous and Glaucous-winged Gulls (above) were around as were Smew, Long-billed Plover, Great Egret, Eastern Buzzard, Black Scoter and the usual common winter birds of this part of the world.
Another year almost over.
East of town one of the ports was full of Kittiwakes.
000’s of them but no Red-leggeds sadly.
The same influx happened 2 years ago at the same place.
Not much else around: White-tailed Eagle, Harlequin Duck, Glaucous-winged Gull, Black-necked Grebe……….