Spring 2011........

I always have a few days off at the end of March, it can be a good time for birds. The strong westerlies that tend to blow at this time often waft a Hoopoe or 2 over from mainland Asia. Not today, I spent a birdless morning in Yunokawa (it used to be a good place for birds but unfortunately development along the river has ruined it) andso in the afternoon I headed over to Irifune to check out the Brent Geese.

The numbers increase at this time of year (there were about 70 or 80 today) and they are much more active than in winter...................

I fired off lots of BIF shots, it was a bit tricky trying to focus on a fast moving flock against fast changing backgrounds. I should maybe be trying some different settings here, my BIF settings work OK if there is one bird against a clean background but a lot of today's shots ended up in the trash. Perhaps I should enable all focus points or change the tracking priority in the custom functions or something...............

It was a pleasant enough day but pretty windy..........

The Irifune area seemed to have escaped unscathed from the tsunami. I could sit down on the concrete with the fish bones and goose sh*t to get some group shots.

The Harlequin Ducks were still present but as shy as ever.........

Not much else around, some Red Breasted Merganser and several Glaucous Winged Gull in amongst the commoner Gull species.........

I basically have another 3 days off and the weather forecast looks promising so I may go back one more time for the Brent BIFs.

My doorbell rang about an hour ago and it was my neighbours. I've hardly ever spoken to them in all the time I've been living here (8 1/2 years!). They said they would be moving tomorrow and apologised in advance for the noise. I didn't realise I'd been here so long, their kids have grown up and are leaving home, they were snotty nosed elementary schoolkids when we first moved here. God I feel old........

I hope the Japanese government sorts out that power plant ASAP. No radiation up here (so far, fingers crossed and let's hope those westerlies blow a while longer) but c'mon, sort it out FFS.............

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