Mie, 7th February

This trip to Mie didn't net as wide a range of species as usual. On the bright side I was able to get over there on a Saturday as I don't have to work on Saturdays for the next three months - wonderful. Though the species total may have been lower than hoped for there were still a few birds of interest around.

On the duck front, the Black and Stejneger's Scoters have disappeared but two Red-breasted Mergansers were much easier to photograph then normal. When they aren't miles out to sea they typically move away from the coast pretty quickly when approached, they seem far more nervous than other ducks here.

Another that gave itself up easily was Olive-backed Pipit. They aren't difficult to creep up on but I don't usually spend time trying to get shots of them so this was a bonus.

Neither of the above are what I'd call Mie specialities within Kansai, but Saunder's Gull certainly is and this was one of about 50 seen yesterday.

Adult Saunder's patrolling the emerging mud as the tide dropped.

The first big surprise was a Reed Bunting with a ring. Unfortunately I couldn't get close enough to see any details.

Ringed Reed Bunting. 

Another Reed Bunting.

Back to gulls. This is either a leusistic Vega or a Vega x Glaucous hybrid, the latter seems more likely as the very limited blackish in the outer primaries is perfectly symmetrical. Though on the other hand the saddle colour isn't any paler than I'd expect from Vega. Unfortunately it stayed out on a sand bar so I wasn't able to get better views than these distant digiscoped shots.

Other birds of interest were a Naumann's x Dusky Thrush intergrade and a number of Taimyr Gulls, including a pair of displaying adults. But they'll have to wait for another post as I want to get back into the field.