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.
These shots were just before a White-tailed Eagle spooked the whole flock and off they went…
Some group shots…
Though it seemed most of the geese had already departed south, 4 species remained including the diminutive Cackling Goose…
Although I was more interested in the Snow Geese…
We only had half an hour with the flock…
The sun went behind a hill…
Last year we went to this same location and saw 000’s of geese in several spots we bookmarked on google maps.
We were several days later in 2021 and there were far fewer geese around and of course they were not loyal to particular fields…
We only got close one time and luckily it was mostly in golden afternoon light.
Just got back from a trip to eastern Hokkaido. Our main target was geese and we saw some but not as many as last year….
Until just under 2 years ago I had never seen Cackling Goose or Snow Goose in Japan.
Now I just can’t stop seeing them all over the place…………
There were also about 40 Snow Geese in the goose flocks…………..
But as I said before it was 99% Whitefronts………..
There was a flock of 9 Snow Goose at Onuma last weekend. There was even a snowy background…………
Otherwise a quiet weekend: Japanese Waxwing and Rook at Onuma and the usual early winter at Yakumo.
I didn’t get many Snow Goose photos on the ground: I managed a few so-so ones just as the sun was going down.
