Lots of common winter gulls and ducks around now as well as the first swans and geese.
A very quiet last 3 weeks for various reasons, these photos were all just outside town this afternoon.
Winter birds arriving
Tag: Glaucous-winged Gull
2021 Late Winter Trip #4
3 of the common winter gull species of Hokkaido, all sitting on the port wall in Mukawa.
Autumn sunshine
Beautiful clear autumn weather the last few days and a clear change in some of the bird species. Harlequin Duck and Glaucous-winged Gulls gave reappeared on the coasts.
A flock of Whooper Swan were flying south yesterday as were lots of Eurasian Jay. Lots of common ducks on the rivers and Great Egrets are becoming more numerous. Northern Goshawk and Daurian Redstart were other noteworthy species near Esan.
Hakodate is pretty quiet: a flock of Rustic Bunting were in one of the local parks today and There are still some Night Herons on the river.
And the Esan area always seems to have a Peregrine…………..
Some Gulls
The Scallop boats were busy in the harbours and there were a lot of Gulls waiting for handouts………..
Some Port Birds
Some common winter port birds from Oshamanbe today.
Winter staples in south Hokkaido
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.
Winter returnees
The first ‘winter’ visitors of the year appeared the last week. The above Black-necked Grebe was near Hakodate and the Glaucous-winged Gull below was at Yakumo.
Other stuff around in the last week included lots of Osprey, a single White-tailed Eagle at Yakumo, Great Egret…………
Waders included Red-necked Stint, Terek Sandpiper, Lesser Sand Plover, Wood Sandpiper, Black-tailed Godwit, Common Greenshank and Eastern Curlew. No photos though.
Quiet up north
Oshamanbe is the most northern location we regularly visist. It is particularly good at this time of year but on Sunday we had to endure sleet, hail, snow and rain. Not ideal for photography.
Birds around included Dunlin, Black and Stenjeger’s Scoters, White-tailed Eagle (only 1), Great Egret, Red-necked Grebe, lots of ducks including big flocks of Pintail (above), Whooper and Bewick’s Swans and White-fronted Geese,
The Glaucous and Glaucous-winged Gulls are coming into summer plumage now. Here’s one of the latter.
Glaucous-wingeds……….
The Glaucous-winged Gulls are coming into summer plumage before their return trip north.
They fit in well in Japan. Like the locals, they eat pretty much anything that comes from the sea…………..
Glaucous-winged Gull
Glauocus-winged Gulls are common winter visitors and can be easily seen on all the local coasts at this time of year. Like the paler Glaucous Gulls they seem so evocative of far northern latitudes. I wonder if this individual, in Sawara this afternoon, comes across Polar Bears or Snowy Owls in summer?