Adorable little creature but not if you're an aphid!
Yippee! warmer weather forecast from tomorrow, but for the moment it's still wet, cold and miserable : ( So going through some past photos of previous springs and this came up. These ladybirds - 'tentomushi' in Japanese - always look so pretty, but in reality they are voracious hunters. They eat aphids, sometimes thousands in a day, and hence the title I've given this. Lions of the Macro Plains ; )
The turtles all looking in the same direction is a good thing!
This photo was actually taken last year at about this time. Haven't seen any turtles so far this spring, probably because it's a lot, lot colder. The one other standout about last year and the reason I decided to post this is that we have just had the first anniversary of the giant earthquake that struck the north of Japan on March 11th 2011. It was a terrible time and for the people living in that area, still is. The aftershocks continued for many months after the event, and recently they have started up again, several in the last few days of increasing intensity. There is an old tale that says that the world
was created on the back of 6 turtles and that earthquakes happen when
they disagree and move in different directions. I would be really happy to see them all in agreement again................
This is from popular YouTube blogger softypapa, who makes some great videos about nature and other aspects of Japan. In this case he finds a large toad in some mountains near Tokyo. Reminded me that although this giant city seems very unfriendly to nature, there are spots that actually teem with life in all it's variety. In fact, I've seen animals, usually late at night, in this concrete jungle that I've never seen out in the country. I recall one evening on my way back from work I was walking up a hill in a very built up area of Yotsuya, central Tokyo, when in the opposite direction crawling very determinedly down the hill was a toad about the same size as the one in this video. I was too astonished to do anything except watch as it disappeared into a meter wide strip of bushes outside a giant apartment building. On other occasions I've seen racoon dogs, large snakes and kingfishers. I have no idea how they manage to survive, but they do!
A mashup of some of the video footage I took with Professor Ewan when we went on our mini safari. The warm weather was very short lived, a couple of hours, with a freezing wind blowing us back home later in the afternoon. Still, wasn't a bad day. Apart from the surprise of seeing the lizards out this early in the year we also found half a dozen herons in residence at the local bird sanctuary. A wonderful place that was only opened last summer. There will be more news from there as the weather clears up and we can get about without being blown from our bicycles ; )
Professor Ewan with his first exhibit of the year.
Couldn't believe this lizard was out and about. Have
had a miserable, rainy, freezing cold winter this year, but yesterday the sun came out for
an hour and it was slightly warm - about 12C. Found this little beauty sunning himself on a wall. Professor Ewan - so named because he's always lecturing me on various topics - was beside himself as we weren't expecting anything to be awake for a good few weeks yet!
Loved the pattern of his scales and beautiful yellow eye.
We spent 15 minutes taking photographs and having a good look at him. Usually, it's very hard to catch these because in the summer they're like little streaks of lightning. Most of the time all you see is the end of a tail disappearing into the long grass. On the rare occasions we've caught one, we've had to hold on tight otherwise they're off! However, because of the cool weather and an empty stomach after 4 months hibernation this one was very easy to catch and handle. Great for taking photos, but a pity we didn't have the video with us.
We put him him back on the wall and he disappeared into the leaves.
We didn't have much success in keeping these last summer. We caught several, but they refused to eat and would rapidly lose weight. Sadly, we lost two, and then decided just to keep any more we caught for a few days before returning them to the place we found them. This summer we're planning to do some research into the best environment for them and make a larger and hopefully more suitable home for the lizards and any other wildlife we catch.
Here is a video of the first lizard we kept back when Professor Ewan was around 5 or 6. At that time, he'd just got his first camera and I started taking videos of the animals we caught and various mini safari's we took together. The six or seven I made became a series on Youtube called 'The Family Pet'. These can be seen by clicking on the link.
