It’s been a while since I have been birdwatching. It’s nice weather these days, which is to say, clear and sunny but not so cold. So Sachi and I took a walk outside to a few close-by parks. One was really close, right outside the door; the other just a block or so away. Anticipating a few birds, I took the camera with the zoom lens. There were a lot more birds out than I thought–none unusual, but some nice standards.

We got the Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker, Great Tit, Brown-Eared Bulbul, Oriental Greenfinch, Dusky Thrush, Grey Starling, Japanese White-Eye, and the Bull-Headed Shrike. (There were sparrows and crows also, but aren’t there always.) The Shrike was the least expected, but the prettiest was the Japanese White-Eye, pretty partly because of the yellow-green plumage, but also because it is framed by the newly-arrived cherry blossoms. They were mostly in the daikan-zakura, a kind of cherry tree that blossoms early despite the cold.

In any case, here are the better shots I took this morning. Click to embiggen, with only a few exceptions. First, the mejiro, or Japanese White-Eye:

This next image is not upside-down, the bird is. The White-Eyes often hang upside down to reach the blossoms and drink the nectar.

Next is the kawarahira, or the Oriental Greenfinch.

I was lucky enough to catch one in mid-flight, which is where you can see the lovely yellow and black wing markings.

In our local park, I caught the Pygmy Woodpecker (kogera), always a nice little catch.

Less spectacular is the Grey Starling:

Often on the ground at this time of year is the tsugumi, the Dusky Thrush:

And the nice surprise, the Bull-Headed Shrike, with lovely color, the eye stripe, and the overbite:

…and, of course, the flowers were pretty.

Finally, this annoying Bulbul–one of my least-favorite birds (they’re everywhere and don’t sing, but instead screech) which did nothing to improve my opinion by chasing off all the White-Eyes–the two birds compete for the same food source at this time, namely the cherry blossoms.

Afterwards, we stopped by the small pizza house at the edge of the park, the one that was really a coffee house and had just one type of pizza. But it was nice, and more than anything, a nice little day out.