Snow birds: Japanese Green Woodpecker, アオゲラ

Snow was in the forcast, but just for 1 or 2 days. We took our chances and drove to the central mountains of Kyushu, knowing that we might get stuck. Which happened indeed, but lasted only 3 days

Japanese Green Woodpecker, アオゲラ and Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker, コゲラ aiming at the same seeds

The bigger one won - rule of nature

Also in the area: female Redflanked Bluetail, ルリビタキ

Willow Tit, コガラ

The inevitable and unavoidable - Ice

Crested Kingfisher, ヤマセミ in the snow, 雪

 When the snow stopped, I ventured on to the mountains, slowly, carefully, ready to turn around when necessary. Frankie, my tiny Honda, took me to the school. From there I walked. It was cold, but the scenery was interesting and I fell in luck with the 2 Kingfishers.

Icicles after long time no see. (This English is so bad!) 久しぶりのつらら。

Ice, 氷 close-up

Ice

With all the freezing conditions of this winter there were many opportunities to shoot ice scenery. Frozen waterfalls are most popular. This is a little different. Water was spraying out of the hole of a fractured water pipe near a hot spring. Despite the temperature of the water ice had formed on the trees and bushes around it. With the sun out it provided a ton of magical mystical scenes!

Kirishima 2

The wintery conditions were not that bad, Billie keeps us warm at night. Below some early morning images

Sunrise at Iwo-san, a small volcano that had started behaving a bit irregular and thus was off limits.

Continued

Ice, 氷

It was a cold winter in Kyushu. We had snow and ice and all the discomfort, inconveniences and joy that come with it... except for the sports. We couldn't ski, snowboard nor skate. But then we had the pyeongchang 2018 winter olympics ;-)