World Champions, Long toes, and other natural disasters

Good evening/morning/night/afternoon everybody. It has been a busy couple of weeks since my last update. Between work, the IAAF World Champs, and birding, life has been packed to the brim with activity, excitement, and ticks galore. I attended the evening session of Day 2 of the IAAF WCs in Osaka, which hosted the Mens 100m semis and final, the womens shot putt final, womens heptathlon final day, women's 800m semifinals, mens 400m hurdles semifinals, and the womens pole vault qualifying rounds where I was honored to watch the amazing Isinbayeva compete (seen in action here). The seats I had were 8 rows from trackside, right on the final bend and into the finishing straight. This meant that I was sitting directly across from pole vault event and in aisle next to the competitors coaches and team mates. It was a pretty cool experience. I had never been to an major international event like this before, be it a World Cup, Olympics and the like. It was definitely paying out the 100 yoyos to go. To watch Tyson Gay run 100m in 9.85 secs (final photo below), see Maria Mutola still put fear into her fellow 800m runners, and watch world record holders compete was mindblowing. Isinbayeva was incredible. Such confidence. Also, the womens heptathlon athletes were amazingly fit. Kluft was magnificent in winning the event and the British girls Sotherton and Ennis were brilliant (see below). All in all, a fantastic day. Check out my Flikr page for a load of photos from the event.

WARNING: BIRDING POST FOLLOWS. The following weekend I went to Mie Prefecture with Kazu and Neil. We had a great day, seeing 26 species of waders, with exceptional numbers of Red-necked stints and broad-billed sandpipers. With a spoon-billed sandpiper in Tokyo, 4 in Hakata Bay in Kyushu, together with a Nordmann's Greenshank(!) and Pec Sand, our hopes for finding a major rare were high. Alas, we had to be content with the usual spread of waders but the sheer variety made for a fantastic and entertaining day. This weekend, we went back thinking that the passing of Typhoon No. 9, which caused some serious flooding in the Tokyo area along the Tamagawa, might have brought some goodies. We couldn't have been further from the truth....there were hardly any waders at all, managing only to add 3 more wader species to our impressive 26 species from the weekend before. The following are the wader species we saw over the 2 weekends: Black-winged Stilt (see above), Little Ringed Plover, Kentish Plover, Pacific Golden Plover, Grey-headed Lapwing, Great Knot, Dunlin, Broad-billed Sandpiper, Red-necked Stint, Long-toed Stint (see below), Wood Sandpiper, Common Sandpiper, Terek Sandpiper , Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, Marsh Sanpiper, Spotted Redshank, Common Redshank, Common Greenshank, Black-tailed Godwit, Bar-tailed Godwit, Curlew (JP tick for me coz I'm a tart!!!), Far Eastern Curlew, Whimbrel, Common Snipe, Swinhoe's Snipe, Painted Snipe, Ruff, Grey-tailed Tattler, and Red-necked Phalarope. Pretty impressive...lots of more pics on my Flikr page.

For the last couple of evenings, I have been fortunate enough to be entertained by a singing Blue Rock Thrush from the apartment building across for me. It's so nice to hear a thrush sing, and it brings back fond memories of home. Speaking of which, I am heading back to the fair emerald isle in a few weeks time for my cousin, and best friend's wedding, at which I am groomsman. I am thoroughly looking forward to the event and the break from work, Japan and all that goes with it. I will have a packed agenda so R&R maybe few and far between. Rumor has it that a certain CB has surpassed my amazingly low Irish list last week, allegedly seeing the Spotted Sandpiper in Ballycotton. This information comes from CB but my sources are refusing to comment on the allegations. Roll on the holiday and a few megas for when I am on Cape Clear!!


Apart from all that, it's been okay at work, cruising now but waking up instinctively, if one could call it that, at 5.30-6am most, if not every morning. This is of course a bit of a drag as I'm falling asleep at work during the afternoon, and now take it upon myself to have a powernap for 10 minutes sitting at my desk in the evening to get that second wind for the post-6pm slot. All good fun I can assure you. Well, sin é for now. The yen is appallingly weak as piss-water. I just wish they (the JP Banks) would increase, or rather, introduce interest rates into the system here (you earn 0.005% interest, or something ridiculous like that, on your savings in Japan...nice eh?). Right, I am going to watch Spiderman 3 and go to bed. I got an hour's sleep last night in the back of the van so am quite tuckered out now. I bid you all adieu...

Carmo's Diet: this week, I have mostly been eating Gilco Protein shakes

Carmo's Birds: see above. JP list now stands at 326.

Carmo's Birds for Byrdy: Allyson Felix (US track star and supreme athlete)