White day shines some light

Good evening everyone and welcome to this evening's cabaret. I am totally delirious tonight following a regular man's 8 hour day on 2 hours sleep. The reason for the 2 hours of sleep? I worked a mammoth, and current record, 19 hours between 8.30am on Tuesday to 4am on Wednesday morning, being back at the office again at 8.30am...ain't life grand.

So, without further ado, and while I am still awake and jittery from the gym, I give you...THE BIRD POST for Feb 4th-March 3rd, 2007 (daaaa da da da...dddaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa).

February 4th: A twitch to a place near Nagoya in Aichi for a plethora of potential ticks, lifers included. The overnight drive and a couple of hours kip in the car made for a bleary-eyed start, but through the murky light of the pre-dawn, a magnificent (Oriental) Shore Lark was visible in amongst a handful of Skylarks feeding on some waste ground near the Pacific coast. After a couple of hours of watching the lark (lifer by the way), we took a walk up the beach and saw Sanderling (JP tick), Dunlin, tons of Vega gulls but no sign of the Oystercatchers we also wanted to see. We drove up the coast and stopped off at some amazing habitat that we just don't have in Osaka...nice open mudflats in a big estuarine floodplain....glorious. From in amongst the hundreds of ducks, cormorants, and egrets, 4 Brent Geese wenting swimming by...another JP tick. This is probably Branta bernicla orientalis, the race of Brent Goose occurring in E Siberian and W Canada. Info on the web suggests it's either a race of Black Brant, Pacific Brant or it's part of Black Brant and isn't racially distinct. Don't you just love geese. Then a couple of Saunder's gulls floated by (see photo above)...magic. In total we saw close to 30 Saunder's gulls, including a flock of about 20 on a sand bar. Definitely coming back here again during migration time. So, 3 ticks including a lifer. Not bad. No Oystercatchers though...

February 10th-12th: Spent within the environs of Osaka, the 10th being filled by showing an English birder from Tokyo around the various parklands, providing class birds such as wryneck, Golden-Crowned Sparrow (still around) and Chinese Grosbeaks as lifers for Richard. We also stumbled across a glorious flock of 34 Japaense Waxwings (see photo above). The female Goshawk being persistently mobbed by a flock of Jungle Crows made for an entertaining spectacle while waiting for the Golden-Crowned Sparrow to appear from the reeds. The 12th was supposed to be another trip to Mie Prefecture to get the Oystercatchers but I slept out and missed it. Bollix to working so much. I ended up going to Phoenix where I found a Spotty Red, LBD in winter plumage, plenty of duck, Kentish Plover, Green Sandpiper and a brilliant flock of Reed Buntings and Chinese Penduline Tits.

February 24th: A trek up to Tobakaido in the early morning was worth the unmerciful waking hour of 4am. A walk for about an hour up a trail in the woodland finally rewarded me with my first Grey Buntings, lifer!! Beautiful buntings but difficult to see as they can be skulkers. While waiting for the buntings to reappear, a pair of Red-billed Leothrix were noisily flying around my head, accompanied by the mad JP White-eyes. After a few hours in the peace and quiet of Tobakaido and Fushimi-inari, I headed to the Imerial Palace grounds in Kyoto, where a probable hybrid Dusky x Black-throated Thrush was found during that week. Although I didn't see that thrush, a fantastic White's Thrush showed extremely well on the lawn before it flew up into the trees (see above). Aswell as that, there was a supporting cast of Rustic Buntings, hundreds of Olive-Backed Pipits, Pale, Brown, and Dusky Thrushes and a large flock of 60 JP Grosbeaks. A lone Daurian Redstart and Bull-headed Shrike were nice to watch amongst the blossoming Plum trees (aaahhhhhhh).

February 25th: Another twitch to Mie prefecture, this time in the company of Kazu and 2 of his friends. It was a great day out and it was good to spend some time with Kazu. We had an amazing day, seeing Ruff, Wood Sandpipers, Long-toed Stints, Common Snipe, LRPs, Grey-headed Lapwings, Northern Lapwings, Rustic, Meadow and Black-faced Buntings and skylarks. However, the stars of the trip were a brilliant flock of 7 Temminck's Stints (a lifer and major bogey bird, see photo above) and Japan's 2nd Semipalmated Plover (photo below), also a lifer (I think). The Plover was a cool bird but bird of the day for me had to be the Temminck's stint. Although an annual passage migrant in Japan, I have waited a long long time to see one of these birds. Kazu found the first Temminck's and I was so thrilled. We also watched a Japanese Green Pheasant crash in to a window, bounce off and tumble into the ditch but he looked ok. Neil could not make it that weekend but he caught up with the Plover the following Thursday...and he got the Oystercatchers....fecker.

March 3rd: A mega twitch to Shikoku with Neil for Japan's 2nd Red-backed shrike (photo below)....or is it??? Answers on a postcard please and more photos available on My Flikr Photos. Other birds that day included a flyover Crossbill, JP Sparrowhawk, Eurasian Sparrowhawk, Bull-headed shrikes and tons of JP Bush warblers singing everywhere...spring is coming. Although it was 22Deg C that day, it was snowing in Osaka a week later. The world is going mad...

Enough I said!!!! Check out more photos on My Flikr Photos!!!