Little Curlews

 I neglected my usual winter patch in the Matsusaka/Tsu area this year. I say winter but could easily add spring and autumn, there's always something going on. And instead, I head up to Lake Biwa whenever I had free time in search of Lesser Scaup. Successfully in search of Lesser Scaup I might add... unbelievable! This obsession was the result of a female being seen in December. I never found it but what must the odds have been against finding a different bird in the same area? I wonder how many rare ducks are overlooked on Lake Biwa or along coasts where massive aggregations occur. Maybe I should focus on finding a Redhead next winter? Yeah, right.

Anyway, it was good to be getting back to my old stomping ground but each time I went I felt the place hadn't quite lived up to expectation. There weren't the concentrations of winter gulls I'd been looking forward to and the spring build up never really took off. The spring wader passage was slow taking off too, it still hasn't really got going. Plus trying to find habitat in the right condition at the right time has been hard work. 

Moan, moan, moan. But looking back at the five visits I've made since 23 March there's actually been a stand out bird each and every time. There was a Thayer's Gull on that first visit and, by two days, my earliest ever Latham's Snipe on 30 March. Into April and the 7th, 13th and 19th produced a totally unexpected Pallas's Reed Bunting, a patch tick singing Japanese Robin and two Little Curlews respectively. It's not to be sniffed at, is it?

So, finally, on to the title birds. I was on the seawall checking the landward side pools for any Garganey which should be arriving now (zero), or any stints along the muddy edges (zero), when my eye was caught by a couple of large waders circling the field behind one of many solar farms that blight the area. They looked as though they'd been put up and were aiming to re-settle, these Far Eastern Curlews in turn led me to notice two much smaller waders, likewise circling and ultimately dropping to the fields. I've seen enough Little Curlews trying the Pacific Golden Plover ploy, Whimbrel ploy even, not to be fooled for a second. Though they'd gone down probably no more than about 600m away as the bird flies, seawall roads don't allow for much choice of direction and the ones currently on offer were of no help at all. So after touring the district I edged along the narrow road between the fields hoping they hadn't moved.

They were active and wide ranging, this is the only shot showing them together. One is very obviously paler than the other, convenient for keeping track of which is which as they move around the fields, but more unusually it also has a clearly noticeable primary extension which is at odds with descriptions I've read of the species. 

The primary extension is clearly noticeable, the primary projection itself is longer than typical for the species.

The darker bird with a shorter primary projection and no extension.

The expected short projection clearly visible. 

Though the overall pattern of the greater coverts, median coverts and tertials always seems the same 'oak-leaf' pattern there is more variation in the lesser coverts, some have a distinct 'oak-leaf' pattern while others only very slight or a broad even fringe. This bird is 'oak-leaf' throughout.    

The paler bird has broad even fringes on many lesser coverts with only a very slight indication of 'oak-leaf' on some. 

 

The paler of the two with a quite pale Far Eastern. They aren't called Little Curlew for no reason!

The darker of the two with it Far Eastern dark counterpart.

The two Far Easterns together.

Pallas's Reed Bunting - well that was unexpected

 I was hoping to find migrant snipe over the past week, both locally, here in Kyoto, and across in Mie. Unfortunately there's precious little good looking workable habitat and I didn't find a single snipe. I expect there'll be birds around, I'm simply not looking in the right places. Very disappointing. Even more so considering I had a Latham's on 30 March, my earliest sighting yet. There wasn't much happening on the wader front in general, though it's still early days of course, but April is peak time for snipe passage in this area and I'd hoped for more success.

It isn't true to say I didn't find any snipe but the only one I came across surprisingly turned out to be Common. First thing in the morning it was running around and jumping over tussocks amongst the rank grass and mulleins on the upper beach, between the seawall and the sand. Strange place (and behaviour) for a Common Snipe.

The next bird to catch my eye was a hybrid Eurasian Teal, this is my first teal hybrid. It was on a pool with a few Eurasian Teals and Falcated Ducks and it's the latter which my be the other species involved. Maybe. The bird was never close and these photos are the best I could get.

There can't be any doubt one parent is a teal, but what's the other. Very heavy flank markings, the green crown and shaggy nape put me in mind of Falcated. Uppertail coverts aren't bad either. Quite where the white vent and undertail coverts come from, I have no idea.

Next up was the Pallas's Reed; right place, right time, total luck. I wonder whether it was wintering here, or had wintered in the region and was now slowly on the move. It would have to be a very early (and rare) spring migrant otherwise.

I was hoping to see a nice breeding plumage Buff-bellied Pipit, most were in patchy transitional plumage, at best, and none had been close enough to photograph anyway. There were one or two Pipits I was trying to creep up on when two reed buntings flew up from the the far side of the opposite embankment, one perched in a bush and this bird on a wavy reed stem. From the word go this bird looked worth a closer look and through the scope I though I could make out blue-grey lesser coverts, well worth a closer look. By the time I'd binned it, scoped it, got my camera on it, time was surely running out, it wasn't going to perch up forever. The autofocus wouldn't grab, damn, I focused on the vegetation near the base of the wavy reed stem, and got one shot off before it flew. Double damn. Both birds flew round the corner of a largish building building - the only building in about 1.5km - and didn't seem to appear from the other side. I walked to the corner and peered round. There was a broad, deep ditch overgrown with reeds and bushes running along the base of the seawall embankment, a narrow track for the local mini-tractors and growing barley on the other side. A reed bunting was perched in a bush about 100m further along. How had it got so far without me seeing it? Was it even the same bird? I never got to find out because it flew again long before I could get close enough, and dived into the barley never to be re-emerge. 

When I returned to the van I checked the results on the back of the camera and to my surprise the image was less out of focus than expected. On top of that, I'd jammed a second shot of it in flight, it's not going to win any photographic competitions but the wing coverts are amazingly clear. This is only the third mainland Pallas's Reed I've ever found. What a score!

No photographic awards, but the all important lesser coverts are just visible.

Astonishingly, the lesser coverts are actually the clearest, most in focus point on the bird. No wonder I didn't find any snipe, I used all my luck on this shot.

By now it was almost lunch time and an afternoon of gulling beckoned further up the coast.

Thayer's... er, sorry, Iceland Gull (and a wannabe)

 After plugging away with Biwako ducks this winter, it was finally time to switch back to gulls. There weren't as many gulls as I'd hoped for when I arrived in Mie but a Thayer's will always make it a good gulling day in this part of Japan.

From left to right; Taimyr, Vega (the usual suspects) and Thayer's.

By this time of year the gulls on the beach are reasonably approachable, they are really flighty early in winter.

Unlike ducks, gulls are pretty easy when it comes to getting shots of wing pattern.

Of course you have to watch out for the Vega that wants its 15 minutes... there's always got to be one, hasn't there!

Got to give it marks for effort I suppose.