Roosting Spoonbills

As I said in the earlier posts, the actual main target for my short trip to Fukuoka was the globally endangered Black-faced Spoonbill (Platalea minor). I did see it and in a good number too, but all of them were staying just too far out in the river. Before going on the trip, I made a little research about where to see the spoonbills, and I found that a good number of them can be seen constantly at Imazu. I came across several videos on YouTube showing the spoonbills resting on a small island in the middle of a huge river. I recognised the island easily as soon as I arrived at the place in Imazu. On the small island, there was a medium-sized flock of white birds roosting motionlessly. I was surprised by how easy these birds can be found here in Fukuoka. I began to settle down waiting for the birds to wake up and start feeding. From what I saw in the videos, these birds feed along the river banks close to the footpath, so I thought that once they wake up, it'd be easy for me to get photos of them closely. However, it turned out that they mostly spent the time on the island. Otherwise they just flew out and disappeared into the distance.

Roosting Black-faced Spoonbills (Platalea minor)

On the first day, I counted 25 spoonbills at once. At least 3 of them were Eurasian Spoonbills (Platalea leucorodia), but there might be more since I couldn't check every individual whether it was Black-faced or Eurasian because many of them were sleeping with their bills hidden in the feathers. I believe that there would be even more birds at dusk once they all come back to roost. On the second day, there were only 18 birds. I tried waiting until the evening but none of them came feeding along the river banks. I was really surprised that they were really lazy birds. Most of them didn't wake up from their sleep at all! Only a few of them began to preen and bath when the sun began to set. At least I found one of their feeding sites as mentioned in the earlier post here. Hopefully, I'll be able to see a few Black-faced Spoonbills at this feeding site during my next visit.

An adult Eurasian Spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia)
among the smaller Black-faced Spoonbills (Platalea minor)

Adult (right) and juvenile (left) Eurasian Spoonbills

The only active juvenile Black-faced Spoonbill

A subadult Eurasian Spoonbill coming back to the roosting site

Here's a video showing Black-faced and Eurasian Spoonbills bathing and preening at their roosting site at sunset. Don't forget to select 1080p for a better viewing!

Sekino-E

I visited the fields at Sekino-e (関の江) very often since the beginning of October, even before I found the goose. Here's a compilation of photos I took earlier last month, mainly damselflies and herons. October seems to be a very good month for dragonflies and damselflies before they disappear during winter. One of the most numerous species was the tiny turquoise Ischnura senegalensis. I enjoyed taking my time photographing these tiny insects under the warm evening light a lot.

Ischnura senegalensis

The brown ones are females.

There weren't so many new migrants during the first half of the month actually, but it's gotten much better towards the second half. The Daurian Redstarts are among the first decent migrants. This year, I first found them at Sekino-e on October 17, one day later than last year (October 16). A few thrushes(either Dusky or Pale) were seen during the last week of October and the number of Common Teal has dramatically increased towards the end of the month. Other birds like Grey Herons, Common Kingfishers, Japanese Grosbeaks and Great Egrets were constantly seen throughout the month.

Non-breeding Great Egrets (Casmerodius albus)

Grey Herons (Ardea cinerea)

The first flock of Chinese Spot-billed Ducks (Anas zonorhyncha) in Beppu.
Although there are plenty in Oita, I've never seen one in Beppu before.

A kind of Skipper butterfly. Don't know which one?

Kitsuki

Now here's the photos from that trip to Kitsuki I mentioned in the previous post. The weather was extremely good, sunny though a bit too windy at the sea. It took just about 20 minutes or so from Beppu to Kitsuki by train, and the scenery along the way was pretty spectacular. The rice fields were all looking beautifully golden, and the sky was so blue. I enjoyed taking lots of landscape and other non-bird shots a lot. Here's a selection.

Cold autumn breeze with warm morning light made my morning walk perfect.

The river looks really nice, though there were not so many birds.

Non-breeding Intermediate Egrets (Mesophoyx intermedia)

Eurasian Skylark (Alauda arvensis)

Male Meadow Bunting (Emberiza cioides)

Birds along the river were good in number, but not quite so in variety. There were lots of Intermediate and Little Egret perching on the river banks and Skylarks. A few couples of Zitting Cisticolas were also flitting in the rice paddies, as well as the numerous Meadow Buntings. A few Mallards and Spot-billed Ducks were floating in the river, with lots and lots of wigeons. Black-eared Kite was not surprisingly the only raptor seen.

The Blue Heron

While slow time has just started arriving Hokkaido, it's been really quiet here in Kyushu for many weeks now. Birds are not singing, it's been raining everyday, and no migrants to be found. Pretty much enough for me to have not taken any photo since June 13th.

So what I'm doing now is just the same old playing around with my blog. I tried changing my current template to the newly developed ones that blogger has just offered, but I found myself not liking any of those new invention, so I just stick with my simple old one. Apparently, I'm also writing a blog in a new way as you can see here. I put photos and text tightly together and the thumbnails for images are also a little smaller, so they are not as space-consuming as before, especially when it comes to a long entry like travel diaries or photo compilations. And I just learned how to put a "Read more »" option into the post as well.

A little more news to update. Finally, I would have a chance to go birding abroad once again, after my international birding has been paused by the time I came to Japan. So one of my birding colleagues emailed me that there's a very interesting discount for an airline's ticket to Malaysia, where I was so eager in making a re-visit, so I said ok and we'll all be going there next March! My last visit to mainland Malaysia was roughly around 2002 and in 2003 I visited Borneo island. Malaysia is just truly another birders' heaven where lots of tropical birds with incredible colours can be found. This visit will be my second time for the very well-known birding spot Fraser's Hill and my first for the equally famous Taman Negara. Can't wait until 2011 comes!