November left-overs

11月の忘れ物

長崎で:


チュウヒ , Eastern Marsh Harrier

ハイイロチュウヒ = Hen Harrier

In Fukuoka:
カモが　着きました
オナガガも

Wigeon

マリノア by night

Half Japanese half English, presently from NZ

December tanjokai

Each first Sunday of the month is Imazu tanjokai day. Members of the Japanese Wild Bird Society get together in the field to exchange information and supply answers to us who know less and always have questions. During the 3hr walk we saw buntings like oojurin and hoaka (Common Reed and Chestnut-eared Bunting) in the reeds

オオジュリン、Common Reed Bunting

On an electrical wire sat the first Dusky Thrush of the season. Hooray!

ツグミ、Dusky Thrush



In the river a big flock of spoonbills was feeding on the in-coming tide.

クロツラヘラサギ、Black-faced Spoonbill,  ヘラサギ、Eurasian Spoonbill

Some Eurasian Spoonbills are living with their Black-faced cousins.

Note the yellow spot on the bill of the bird with the white face.

  

Amongst many ducks, gulls and cormorants were 3 Red-breasted Mergansers and a male Goosander.

カワアイさ、Goosander or Common Merganser. But not so common in Japan.

Kasasagi, Common Magpies are always around and always worth a picture.

  

カササギ、Common Magpie

Mr. and Mrs. Tundra Swan had taken a bath at the butagoya and just got up to move to an adjacent field.

コハクチョウ、Tundra Swan

PS: Yes, there are 2 of them now. 2 Big white blobs in the field. About a week after the first one the second arrived. Where had it come from? How do they find each other? Questions questions.

Lady Kestrel sat at her favorite spot and surprised us with a nose dive to grab a bite for lunch.

It was a good day.

チョウゲンボウ、Common Kestrel

今日の勉強 :  tanjokai. What is that in kanji? I will have to ask somebody.

December birds

What’s happening? Where are the winter birds?

We hardly see any bulbuls and no white-eyes.

A visit to the Magaribuchi dam didn’t produce much. Just some bush warblers.

ウグイス、Japanese Bush Warbler

The story of the Tundra Swan

When Junko phoned to tell that somebody had seen a rare bird, I went to pick her up and we drove to the area west of Fukuoka city. The weather had been bad with lots of rain, but right then it cleared a bit and though the cloud cover was dark grey, there was a little soft light coming through.

We scanned the river, the mudflats and the fields of Imazu. Stopped to look at an Osprey in a tree, a White Wagtail eating “something with legs”, Greenshanks in green grass and a Common Kingfisher on the side of a canal, matching colors with the water pipes.

ミサゴ、Osprey

アオアシシギ、Common Greenshank
 

ハクセキレイ、White Wagtail

  

カワセミ、Common Kingfisher

Then we drove to fields at Taremaro. They showed a whole lot of nothing. Where was this bird?

Junko called it a ko-hakucho. Hakucho means swan and ko usually stands for small so I pictured a not too big swan, but not too small either so where could it be hiding – in the grass? The sprouted rice plants? The soybeans? We figured it had to be across the river, in the paddies behind the factories. We went over there and the moment we rounded the corner of the first factory building we came to a dead stop and our mouths dropped in ashtonishment. The old ricefields were flooded from the rain and on every square foot was a duck. Ducks were everywhere! Hundreds, thousands of ducks. They were circling above us, too. Landing and taking off in formation. What a sight!

We debated how to proceed and decided to back-up and take another access road with more favorable light conditions. I took a few quick shots, counting on more in about 5 mins. But… we got distracted by this cute little Sandplover and the 5 mins became 15 and when we got back to the fields… they were empty! We looked at each other as if we’d had a dream and weren’t sure what was real. Nothing to see. No ducks anywhere and certainly no little swan.

イソシギ、Common Sandpiper

  

The next day, on Sunday I went back. Guess what? In the middle of the plain that held thousands of ducks the previous day was now a very white, very conspicious huge bunch of feathers fluttering in one of the flooded paddyfield: the swan. Not a small one, but a rather big, impressive Tundra Swan, showing off his (her?) wingspan of over 2 meter. And not one duck. Where was he (she?) yesterday? And were had the ducks gone?
A friend had some explanation: The duck-hunting season started this weekend. I hadn’t seen or heard anything about it, but it was most likely in the newspaper and I still cannot read well. However, the ducks can apparantly.

コハクチョウ、Tundra Swan

A lot of English today.

I will write the Japanese version later, when I have a holiday of some kind. It will probably take me a whole weekJ

Great Cormorants

今日の写真： カワウ、Great Cormorants in the harbor

Day trip to Isahaya

A day trip to Isahaya in Nagasaki pref. didn t produce many good pictures, but was interesting anyway, thanks to John A. Wright who showed us the best locations. Thank you John!

チョウゲンボウ、Common Kestrel

 コチョウゲンボウ、Merlin

チュウヒ、　　Eastern Marsh Harrier

  

 

ハイイロチュウヒ、　Hen Harrier,

カンムリカイツブリ、Great Crested Grebe