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!

Northern Pintail

Another post with photos from Sekino-E. Northern Pintail (Anas acuta) might be one of the commonest ducks in Japan, but not here in Beppu. This male bird was first seen on November 2, and continued to be presenting in the same area until some time during the last week. It always stayed with the much smaller Common Teals and liked to come out to the open, especially at dusk. Too bad its pin tail was still very short and its plumage was always dirty with mud. Although it was shy, I could finally get quite any shots of it while taking bath after sunset. These pics would have looked much better with more light though.

Male Northern Pintail (Anas acuta)

Another photo of Furuso-san and the bird to end with this post

Autumn Tattlers

These photos were taken during the last few weeks. There were several autumn Grey-tailed Tattlers residing in a small artificial river near my place along with a pair of Common Sandpiper and White Wagtails. The tattlers were all juveniles judging from the pale fringes on their upperwing coverts. I still haven't seen any non-breeding adult. These birds will come back all in full breeding plumage in spring.

Juvenile Grey-tailed Tattlers (Heteroscelus brevipes)

Non-breeding Common Sandpiper (Actitis hypoleucos)

The weather changes quite often during the last two weeks. Some days were a bit cold, with so much raining, while some were very sunny or windy. All these changes made me feel sick, actually not just me, but a lot of people in the campus seemed to catch a cold. I already saw some Ginko trees shed their bright yellow leaves as well, but most of the others are still green. Hope the real bright weather of autumn arrives soon, I'm sick of dull overcast and rainy days.

White Wagtail (Motacilla alba lugens)

They caught small insects living under the surface.

Ducks have also arrived Beppu as well. Above is a flock of 17 Northern Pintails and 1 female Common Teal. The flock was flying from somewhere in northern direction and landed in the sea behind my dorm. I went to check the teals at Sekino-e the other day, but found that the fields were still full of lotuses, thus no birds could be seen. These lotuses should dry up in a week or two, then the farmers will clear them up, and now that's time for birding again.

Some more shots of the Common Sandpiper to end this entry