Buzzin' Raptors

Been very quite here in Niigata the last few weeks. On March 1st, I walked around Toyanogata for about 5 hours and got a couple of poor pics of a Great Tit. 

This Saturday, the 8th, was fun for watching raptors buzzing about Fukushimagata. Unfortunately all were a bit out of reach of any decent pictures but I enjoyed seeing something in the sky almost all of the time. When I got there, I saw a goshawk land near some reeds and I stalked the long way around to get up close. Stupidly I was looking left when I stepped out, knowing my subject was to my right and sure enough I watched an adult goshawk disappear along the water bank and didn't get a shot. At that time I stood scratching my head and looked around to see several Eastern Marsh Harriers, a Peregrine Falcon, an Eastern Buzzard, some Black-eared Kites, and behind me, a White-tailed Sea-eagle all on the wing 360 degrees around me. All were too far but I waited for something to get close. I realised, however, that when I was watching a harrier come closer in front of me, the eagle doubled back and was very close, but into the sun just behind me. It was an afternoon like this. Very windy and the raptors were just hanging around. A twist of a tail and they were gone or would appear without warning.

I realised there were no geese and I only heard some Whooper Swans when I returned on Sunday. Sunday was quieter for the raptors but I found numerous kingfishers calling to each other and flying back and forth and disappearing into the reeds. I worry about this behaviour when I know the locals will set fire to the winter foliage soon. I was assured such fires have no effect on birds etc. People seem to know everything. 

I've been using My D800 with the new af-s 80-400mm VR but feel it's just been too short this year both in Australia and here. The D800 is a full-frame camera so I took out the D300 on Sunday. Wasn't happy with it either. I either have to get a bigger lens or just go smaller to mirrorless systems such as the V1. 

Last year I had a poster of a Nikkor 300mm 2.8 lens on my fridge with the price tag of 521000 yen. I spent my money on the new 80-400 instead. Now I wish I'd gotten the 300 2.8 but the price has increased by about $1500 to 651000. It's just a price increase without any update to the lens. Things are supposed to go up more next month too.

Maybe I should just spend money on a new pair of bowling shoes.

We had a minute's silence at work today for the three year anniversary of the March 11 earthquake.