Thanks everyone, yes we had seen some fantastic stuff so far. The holiday bank is running low, David!
The next day, we headed down to the coast. Stopping at Shibetsu, we found the harbour mostly frozen, but any clear areas had a good selection of ducks and gulls. Red breasted mergansers and goosanders were in good numbers, as well as scaups and tufted ducks. These are scaups.
A nice flock of goldeneyes were also here.
We then headed along the coast, arriving at the small fishing town of Rousu in time for an early afternoon boat trip out of the harbour. When fish began to be thrown from the boat, we were soon surrounded by slaty back gulls. We had already seen some eagles from the road, but soon, the first white-tailed eagles started to circle down, and were soon snatching the fish from the water and ice, right in front of us.what a spectacular sight! These are very impressive birds-the fourth largest eagles in the world, with a wingspan of up to 8 feet, the white tails of the adults glistening against the blue sky.
Yet the white tails here are dominated, by the presence of an even bigger relative, and that’s what we will be looking at next.