It popped out of the grass for a minute…
2022 Summer Road Trip #2
Category: Mukawa
2022 Summer Road Trip #1
We took a week-long road trip and on the first night we slept near Mukawa.
In the morning there were lots of birds singing in the grasslands including all 3 ‘grasshopper’ warblers. I was very happy to get some photos of Lanceolated Warbler: not a bird I often see or photograph.
It was a dark misty morning though.
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…
Late Winter Trip 2022 Day 5 #13
Not a great pic but surely my last Steller’s until next winter. And it was Ol’ One-eye.
And just to show it wasn’t all geese, eagles and deer:
Late Winter Trip 2022 Day 5 #12
And the last of the Cackling Geese…
Late Winter Trip 2022 Day 5 #11
The last of the White-fronts…
Late Winter Trip 2022 Day 5 #10
We were able to relocated the 2 Snow Geese but they were a little far off and the light was brutal: white birds on hazy warmish sunshine over snowy surfaces.
Late Winter Trip 2022 Day 5 #9
I only saw 1 Bean Goose (Taiga I think) amongst the main flocks in Mukawa. There was a flock of them a few miles east but they were impossible to get close enough to photograph.
There were also quite a few swans. Not photogenic in the harsh spring sunshine. Mainly Whoopers but I found at least 1 Bewick’s.
The nearest I could get to a comparison shot:
Late Winter Trip 2022 Day 5 #8
More cacklers…
