Winter Waterside Birds

A bit of a foot problem has cut down my walking range quite a bit, but I still managed to get out to the river yesterday afternoon to see the ducks flocking in. Mallards, Teal, Pintails, the gang’s all here. I also spotted a blue rock thrush for the first time this season, and my constant companion the kingfisher also made an appearance.

A blue rock thrush, its back blue mottled with gray and black, perches on a concrete embankment. It is looking over its shoulder toward the left side of the frame. — Blue rock thrush making sure I get its good side.

A kingfisher perches on a diagonal leaning reed, looking down. — Kingfisher on the prowl

A very felegant looking northern pintail duck swimming across a rippling river surface. It has a brilliant white breast, brown head, and a grayish body with delicate wavy patterns. Its tail is long and sticks up at an angle. — Northern Pintail, the most elegant of ducks.

I drove two hours

Just to take pictures of birds in a park way on the other side of Honshu.

A daurian redstart with orange belly and black head perched at the tip of a thin twig. It is fanning one wing out for balance. Another twig growing nearby has a cluster of yellow-green leaves. — Stay balanced challenge

A mottled brown and beige bird with a pointed crest on its head is perched on a twig. — Stay sharp challenge

Birders birding

I’ve been venturing out to the river on my bike on various morning and evening trips the past couple of weeks to see if I can spot any kingfishers, but mostly to no avail.

I decided to try the middle of the afternoon today for a change, and from a good 100 meters away I figured I had made the right choice. Can anyone guess how I knew?

A small crowd of five photographers with varying massive lenses pointed down over a river. — Hunters

Yes, all those people and all that camera gear could only mean one thing: there was a kingfisher lurking.

We all took… Jeez, probably a couple hundred pictures each (burst shot on a digital camera really burns through a memory card), but hey, what else is several thousand dollars worth of camera and lens for?