The Jewel at the End of the World

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Went to the lake to get this picture. At this time of year the tracks down to the shore are about 30cm wide and you walk through a tunnel created by 3 meter tall grass and plants on both sides. At the end is always a sheltered fishing spot with nobody around in the middle of the week. These are the only places where I am guaranteed to find a large variety of dragonflies I can photograph close up. My favorite place in the summer. Though with the mozzies out in force I’m usually weak with loss of blood by the time I stagger out!  This one though was worth all the sweat, toil and loss of my vital bodily fluids ;)

Like trekking through a jungle!

Dragon Play

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The temperatures here have suddenly soared with the sultry heat reaching the mid thirties and in some places looking like it might breach 40C in the next few days. This means the dragons have come out to play. I've seen several species around that I haven't caught sight of in several years, including the beautiful creature above known here in Japan as a cho tonbo. Roughly translated as a butterfly dragon. Strangely, they're also a lot easier to capture on film this year. Usually it takes a lot of patience to wait for them to land, but on my expedition of a couple of days ago both the cho tonbo and the yellow dragonfly below kept coming back to the same perch in the grass near the river. This was great for me as I got some good shots, and unfortunately also good for the mosquitoes that got to feast on all my exposed parts at will :(

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Redstart Surprise

Redstart

Part 6 of the winter birds of Japan.

Went out on a photo safari with Prof. Ewan today to a nearby wildlife preserve that has a large lake that attracts a number of winter birds. We saw a dozen wild swans, which we hadn't seen around here in previous years. There were an equal number of blue heron and numerous cormorants and ducks, most of which were too far away to get good photos of with our limited equipment. It was a good day though, out in the cold, enjoying the fine weather and getting some exercise. The big surprise was waiting for us on the way back though. Riding bicycles we nearly ran over what I thought was a sparrow hopping about the road, but a splash of orange caught the eye, and we dropped everything when we found ourselves eye to eye with this redstart. We'd been hoping to get a good image of one since late autumn when we caught a glimpse of another in the neighborhood, but this was a pure piece of luck : )

Small white dots are a group of swans.

Egress of an Egret

Part 5 of the winter birds of Japan.

Throughout the year we have many kinds of egrets and herons in the ponds and paddy fields not far from where I live. Usually, these birds have a very wide safe zone so it's quite difficult to approach near enough for us to get a good image with the limited telephoto lenses we have on our camera. However, as we get deeper into winter and food becomes harder to find these birds become less wary and it's possible to get close enough to get some decent shots. Professor Ewan was surprised a few days ago when one dropped down into the pond not 15 feet away looking for something edible, and the same thing happened again to both of us today in almost the same spot. Spent five minutes taking multiple shots without trying to move a muscle :)

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Christmas Kingfisher

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Part 4 in the Japan winter avian series.

On the first day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
A kingfisher in a bare tree.

No kidding! I actually got my first good photo of one of these beautiful creatures at about the same time last year. Since then I have been searching off and on all year, and then on Christmas morning I was walking round the local pond and this one just plopped down in front of me! I must have been on Santa’s nice list ;) In the last few weeks I've been able to discover where it is nesting so hopefully I'll get a few more good images along with Prof. Ewan who is doing quite well himself at finding this particular bird.

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Get Yer Frog on a Stick

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Third in the Japan winter avian series ;)

Watched a nature program with my son about a Japanese bird called a ‘mozu’ – shrike in English. It is a very small raptor that eats insects, small frogs and lizards and has the interesting habit of spearing its prey on sharp sticks to snack on later. Anyway, with his usual optimism, my son said, ’Let’s go look for a mozu tomorrow.’ I was a bit doubtful as we live in a built up area. However, ten minutes after we started walking round the local park we found a biggish insect speared on a stick. Two days after that we found the bird itself. Very difficult to approach, but with a bit of patience managed to get a few decent shots. So what did I learn from this? It’s fun having a son, positive to the core and untouched by any feelings of doubt at all : )

The Neverending Search for Grub(s)

 

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Second in what will be a Japan bird mini series. 
It’s the season of birds over here. Meaning, it’s cold but no where near as cold as the north of Japan and Asia so we get a wide variety of stopover species, just when there are no leaves to hide in and the predominant color of the landscape is dun. This makes it almost ridiculously easy to pick out small birds which would otherwise be camoflaged and is great for photographers. Saw these Great Tits (In Japan, Shijuukara) searching for grubs in the nearby pond. Took little notice of me as they were all busy getting theirs. Had the luxury of being able to choose my shots for a change : )

Buzz Off Birdbrain!

Have been much too busy to post on this blog for a while so I'm going to play catch up with some of the nature we've seen over the past few months. As late autumn to winter is a great season for bird watching in Japan, there will be a few posts about some of the stunning avian life that visits us at this time of the year.

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First up on the list is this little character who appeared back in November. I had no idea what it was at first, but found out later it's called a 'siskin'. These arrive here from Mongolia and Tibet to winter over in Japan. They usually eat seeds from trees, but this and several others were feasting on seeds from cosmos flowers, which enabled me to get up quite close.

Took hundreds of photos of these birds at the time, as they were much too wrapped up in the chance to gorge themselves. Got really lucky with this shot though. I didn't see the bee while I was taking the shot, and only discovered it later while trolling through the footage :)

Summer's End?

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Thought I'd write a post on the very long hot summer we've enjoyed(?) this year. Usually, the summer here is hot and humid but I've never experienced one as long as this one. Over the last couple of days we've actually had temperatures of 27~28C. I should point out here I'm not complaining about the heat, but showing relief that the temperature has dropped from the 30+ degrees it's been since mid July! We're still having tropical nights (temp doesn't drop below 25C) and we're due a very powerful typhoon tonight that's going to drag higher temperatures back from the tropics tomorrow :(

You'll probably hear me complaining about the cold come January, but for the moment, I'd give anything for a bit of cool! However, the weather has been spectacular in other ways. The skies have been remarkably clear at times with wonderful cloud formations, and because of the heat the local greenery and wildlife has demonstrated a fecundity that's given us some great photo ops :)

Moon Moth

It rained a lot yesterday and when I came back from work, unusually both my wife and son came up, grabbed an arm each and dragged me onto the balcony. Wondering what I'd done this time and whether I had any useful excuses available, I didn't notice at first that they were pointing up. Then I saw it. A Japanese Moon Moth as big as my open hand fastened to the ceiling! It must have dived in to escape the previous nights rain.

I've seen these a few times, usually after heavy summer rains which tend to damage their wings if they're caught without shelter. They only appear around July ~ August and rarely last more than a week in their moth form. This is because they don't have functioning mouth parts so cannot eat. The short time they exist is just long enough to find a partner and mate. Beautiful creatures and we were honored to see one on our balcony :)

Macro Monster Butterflies

 Went on one of our summer safari's to the nearby woods and found several of the trees covered in butterflies of several types, mostly of the swallowtail variety. Because of the heat several trees were weeping a sweet sap which the butterflies and several other kinds of insects (for later posts!) find irresistible. In fact, they love it so much that it is possible to get the camera within a centimeter of them without any effect whatsoever. Normally even if I'm around when they land it's near nigh impossible to get a decent shot of them before they're off again so today was a rare chance to get up close and personal so to speak.

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We've been back on several occasions since to get more photos and cam footage, each time with different insects clamoring for the nectar that seems to flow faster with the rise in temperature - currently 36C! Got some great shots as well. Apart from the stuff on display here, I'll be putting up later posts of battling butterflies and this years midnight safari. For the moment hope you enjoy the spectacle of monster butteflies ;)

Frog Heaven

This is an addition to the previous post. Went out a long way on the bicycle today to a place I haven't been in a year or two. Really beautiful nature park teeming with wildlife of all kinds some of which will crop up in later posts. Just came across this guy sitting on the side of a small stream. It looked an idyllic place for a frog and for a change the wee amphibian didn't jump at the first sign of my approach which gave me chance to play around with the lighting on my new camera. Very pleased with the result :)

Contemplating life from the amphibian perspective.
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A Frog in my Pocket

At this time of year there are frogs in every paddy field and pond and tree from the gigantic bull frogs which are more heard than seen down to the fingernail sized green frogs of the pictures below.

Most summers we keep one or two as a pet for a time, but as they're difficult to feed we usually just catch and let them go.

The first time I saw one of these I was by myself wondering around the nature reserve when I found one looking at me out of the water. The Professor had asked me to get one a week previously but I wasn't good at spotting them at that time. They blend into the background very well! With that one I was in a bit of a quandary because I hadn't anything to carry it in. Eventually after rooting through my bag I found a soft plastic tube I'd used for my toothbrush. This got chucked out and with a bit of water in the bottom it made a great temporary container for the first of many summer frog visitors to the pocket zoo.

Dragon Hunt on One Leg

Well, bought a new camera this week which takes great shots in macro or telephoto mode which is the good news. On the other hand I hurt my leg badly enough to stop me from roaming too far from home. This means I've been practicing my photography in a small area crammed with wildlife I can get at, which at this time of the year means dragonflies. Good thing is I don't have to go hopping after them, just exercise a little patience and they come and land nearby.

Hopefully after a few sessions with the physiotherapist I'll be back on two (functioning!) feet again and can go on some wider safaris.

With a little luck and a planning I'm hoping to get some video of these in flight. Call it my summer homework. Until then, enjoy these and wish me luck ;)

This one looked to have some damage to it's wings making it easy to capture in image but a little sad to see.

The Finger Dragon ~ とんぼ

Back in the spring I published a blog article about Japanese lizards I titled 'The Finger Dragon'. Though the subject of this post is different I offer no apologies for the similarity in title. Dragonflies have to be one of my favorite insects and here in Japan we have a wealth of them. At this time of year at the end of the rainy season they start to appear here and there and eventually reach their peak at the start of autumn when you can see them in hordes. As they're just emerging from their aquatic form it seems to be quite easy to get close to them which makes for some great photos. As you can see here, they'll even perch on a finger if you don't move around too much.

This being the first day of my summer holiday (yippee!), me and Prof Ewan spent some quality time with cameras wondering round the ponds and through the bushes of the local wildlife hotspot. He was quite enamored with his little 'dragon' as it kept coming back to sit on his finger. Eventually, we had this conversation.....

Ewan: Can I keep it as a pet dad?
Paul: Can't really do that. It needs to fly to feed.
Ewan: That's OK. We can keep some mosquitoes in the house too.
Paul: ..........................

風 ~ The Wind

Coming to the end of my busy season and am really looking forward to some down time where I can get out and about with camera and camcorder. I have a midnight safari planned with the 'Prof' and a few other trips we are thinking of doing. I'd like to find a place with fireflies as the season is coming up. There is a lot of luck involved with that though. I've been here 30 years and I've yet to see one! Anyway, in the meantime here is a video I took back in April and have only just managed to get together. The change from winter to spring. If you look at some of my earlier posts you'll see it was a long time coming!

A Sting in the Tail

It's the busy time of year, so unfortunately there's no time to get outdoors and look at the local nature. Instead, today I have a video for you from one of my favorite bloggers in Japan 'softypapa' who does a great job of introducing the local culture and wildlife in his part of Japan. I recommend you have a look at his YouTube site.

The softypapa movie I've selected for today actually gave me a shock when I saw the opening scene. If you look above, you can see a hornet on his finger. This insect is one of the few insects that will send me running if they come my way. They have a wicked sting and are quite relentless on the attack. On the other hand, they are beautiful creatures..... at a distance! The video is not quite what it seems at first glance so I hope you enjoy the sting in the tail ;)

Old Japan

Today we went out for a ride on our bicycles. Went a lot further than we'd planned and ended up at the Saitama Farming Museum. Very relaxing though small place. Basically, a few old farm buildings salvaged from around Saitama and lovingly refurbished and laid out according to the plan of an old farming hamlet of a couple of hundred years ago. There are fish ponds, mini rice paddies and various farming implements of the long blunt stick type. The weather was beautiful, and the overall atmosphere about as idyllic as a Hayao Miyazaki animated movie. Beautiful day, but didn't actually get a lot of photography done. Will definitely be going back again though :)

The Mandibles!!

It's got my finger!!

Well, Professor Ewan got his first pet of the summer, and in an unexpected location. We opened the front door and there on the porch was a Japanese stag beetle (kuwagata). It was a surprise to say the least. With a totally uncharacteristic turn of speed the Prof picked it up and transferred it to a pet box while I was still pointing at the spot on the ground. It seemed like he'd been training all his life for this moment! Anyway, our guest has adapted well to his new home, possibly because of the abundant supply of jelly that my son has lavished on him. It's getting to the point where I'm afraid I'm going to wake up one morning with a 2 meter set of mandibles locked around my neck!!

About the right size for my son to ride it!

 Actually, stag beetles make great pets. They're easy to look after. All they need is a suitable piece of wood to hide under, a reliable source of jelly and can be carried around on a finger. With two you can enjoy the spectacle of them trying to fling each other off the piece of wood! One thing to avoid is holding them to close to the face. They have a very beetle like habit of spraying fluid out of their back end. You can see this in the video :)

Micro Martian Monster

Was walking through the fields watching out for some of the local wildlife I could photograph, like herons, lizards or perhaps a snake and not having much luck. Everything seemed to be hiding. Seems I was casting my view too wide. Sat down in the grass for a bit of a rest, when I noticed this green speck on my arm. Could barely see it as my eyesight is not that great, so tried to take a macro photo and see what turned up. Out of half a dozen attempts this is the only one that worked out. The micro monster from Mars, more commonly known as a greenfly ;)