Showing posts with label heron. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heron. Show all posts

Saturday, April 18, 2015

Birds along the Yamaguchi Coast


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This past Spring while walking the Chugoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage I took a walk along the Japan Sea coast of Yamaguchi,  It's a particularly fine stretch of coast with azure seas, outcroppings and cliffs, small islands and a lot of small fishing villages. Here are some of the birds I saw. The first is a heron. Sagi in Japanese, maybe its a Grey heron, maybe a Great Blue......

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Lots of cormorants. I am guessing that they are Temmink's Cormorants, the most common kind, known as Umi-u in Japanese, though there are some other species which visit during migration. The difference among the onbes in the photo may be due to age and gender.

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Lots of Kites, Black-eared Kite being the common species here. Known as Tombi in Japanese.

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More cormorants.

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This is, I believe, a Blue Rock Thrush, but I have no idea what it is called in Japanese.

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Great Blue Herons


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I am neither a twitcher nor an ornithologist, so some of these may be Grey Herons rather than Great Blues. Though, like all wild animals, they are naturally skittish around people, many live in urban settings and will allow you to get closer to take photos.... this one was in downtown Kurashiki.

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With their long, spindly legs they are well adapted to wade in the shallow waters of ponds and rivers to find their staple... fish. This one is in the pond at the Tenmangu Shrine in Nagaoka.

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Known as sagi in Japanese, they feature in many poems and paintings.

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Graceful in flight, their wingspan can get close to 2 meters..

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This one was in a drainage ditch in Tsuwano, literally a few meters away from where the Heron dance was being performed.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Heron Dance (Sagimai)



Just got back from Tsuwano where I watched the Sagimai, the Heron Dance. Tomorrow I will post details and photos, but for now here is a short video.


There was also the Heron Chick Dance, of much more recent vintage.

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What was intriguing was just before the dances were to begin a real heron landed and strutted around seemingly quite immune to the dozens of photographers taking its photo.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Kurashiki Heron

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