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.
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 :)
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 :)
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.
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!
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 ;)
