Twitcher

I hadn't been to Beppu Koen for such a long time, until yesterday. While I was walking to Sekino-E on the evening of Sunday 21 November, I came across Furuso-san who was about to leave the place. She excitingly told me that yesterday she found a flock of Eurasian Siskins (Carduelis spinus) at Beppu Koen, and showed me the photos of them. I know most of you wouldn't be excited about this, but I was. I've never seen a Siskin before and from the expression of Furuso-san, I can be sure that it is not something ordinary for her, and Beppu as well. So I hurried to Beppu Koen on the morning of Tuesday 23 in search of the Siskins. From the photos in Furuso-san's camera, I could recognise the place where the birds gathered. It was a tree near a small stream where most of the finches like to come down to drink and bath. After I arrived at the park, I walked straight to the stream and sat down and waited for them. After a while, I spotted a large flock of small birds came swirling passed over my head and landed near the big pond in front of the park. I was sure that were them, so I ran right to the pond, and on the dead treetop, there were more than 50 of these small Eurasian Siskins, my latest lifer!

Eurasian Siskin (Carduelis spinus)

I tried to take photos of them while they're drinking water from the pond, but they were so wary and flew off before I could get any decent shot. They're much more approachable and still while perching on the trees. There were several of their favourite perches. One is near the small stream and another two on the different sides of the pond. They always perched on these trees before coming down to drink. The tree near the stream was also fruiting, and they seemed to enjoy eating the fruits.

More from the woods

My birding seems to be completely in idle. I'm still busy with my studies and other activities in the campus, not to mention about the weather...... So here are some more photos I took during the walk around the forest near Beppu Ropeway earlier this month. It was actually a nice day for birding and I found species I don't often see like Japanese Green Woodpecker and Japanese Thrush. Lots of cuckoos were calling all day, both Eurasian and Oriental and Lesser. I flushed the Lesser Cuckoos several times but I couldn't get any photos of them. One time I heard a noisy aggressive call of the Red-billed Leiothrix from the bush behind me and out of the blue came a single Lesser Cuckoo flying out towards me. Surely, the bird quickly flew away as soon as it noticed my presence, so no chance for photographing as usual.

A male Blue-And-White Flycatcher with its young

My first ever shot of the Japanese Green Woodpecker
This one is a male.

And the star of the day, the Winter Wren

It's a tiny bird with a big heart!

The common Red-billed Leiothrixes were singing as usual.

I came across one secretive female Narcissus Flycatcher so I stopped to see if there was any male bird around. Suddenly I heard a sound of an animal walking on the forest floor so I searched through the area and found this Japanese Badger or Anaguma(アナグマ) in Japanese walking slowly in the hill below. It was my first time to see this Japanese animal.

A Eurasian Nuthatch

A juvenile Long-tailed Tit

I then found a group of small birds feeding together fastly along the treetops. I spotted a species which I have only seen once last year, the Willow Tit. Among the species of tits that can be found around here in Beppu, this one is be the scarcest of all. I found one bird feeding along with many Long-tailed, Japanese and Coal Tits and Eurasian Nuthatches. The photo with flash shows its pale wing patch. Too bad the flash was still charging when I took the one which shows the bird's head.

My best shot of the Eurasian Nuthatch so far. This is the only one with flash on.

Others were like this. Without flash the colours look so dull.

And a Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker to finish off with.
The lower photo shows the bird sunbathing on a nice perch.

Hot Days Begin

Winter clothes are all packed back in the closet. The weather has been very warm and sometimes very hot for some weeks now. The rain has just come back few days ago, but now most of the clouds seem to have been blown away. Last Sunday I went birding around Beppu Ropeway again and it was very hot in the afternoon. I noticed that there were some small birds coming to a waterhole in the park near the cable car station. I then went looking for a good place to settle and found a nice shady area behind a maple tree. Too bad it was a little too close to the waterhole so some of the warier birds like the Japanese Grosbeak and Red-billed Leiothrix didn't feel comfortable enough to come down to take bath.

This female Japanese Tit was one of the first guests visiting this waterhole.

She must be feeling very good.

Many Meadow Buntings came to use the waterhole.
This is one of the females.

And here one of the males. This one has blackish scales on its upper breast.

This is another male Meadow Bunting.

This female Grey-capped Greenfinch was hopping around looking for food.

A flock of Japanese White-eyes came close to the waterhole, but was afraid to come down.

Tree Sparrow also wanted to take a bath.

This Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker later came down to another waterhole behind a thick bush.

A small flock of Red-billed Leiothrix also came near the waterhole, but they were afraid of me and later moved to the other area. It'd have been a great experience, if they come down to the waterhole.

And here's picture of a species I've been trying to get some good photos of for so long, a Hwamei. Along with the leiothrix, it's an introduced species from mainland China with a very sweet and complex song. This one was singing very loudly behind a building near the parking lot, but I couldn't get any closer than this because the bird was very wary. It is a common bird and I hear its sweet unique song everyday in the campus where these birds inhibit in thick bushes around the university area, but it is very difficult to get a good view of one.