I’ve only got time to do a little blogging here today–my classes for the new semester start tomorrow, and I’ve been working on class prep for the past several days. But I took the time out today–the weather being so nice–to do some more local birding. And I got some very good results.

First, I went a bit south to Wakabadai, a newly developed area. Too developed, however, as most of the treelines to the forest were occupied by construction teams, almost a whole kilometer of them. Still, there were enough open spaces that I was able to find a few birds lurking. One of them presented itself in song long before I saw it. It skipped along the ground like a Dusky Thrush in some ways, but the Thrush doesn’t sing like this. And I was right: it turned out to be a Skylark (which I had only heard of in Japan from the name of the family restaurant here). It has a noticeable crest, though it is often kept down, and only goes up at certain times. I caught a few of those times.

I did find a nice nature trail and followed it, and I heard some interesting birds, but only saw the same old Bulbuls everywhere; I’m beginning to get very tired of them. They’re darned noisy, too. I even saw some Azure-winged Magpies up close–a pair, probably mother and nearly-full-grown child, as one seemed to be feeding the other, danced on power lines just a few meters above me, but stayed only for five or so seconds, no long enough for me to get the camera ready.

But on the way back home, I decided to try a hilly area near where I live and happened upon a road upon a high bank that overlooked the treetops of the trees from the street below–and ran into a full-fledged flock of Long-tailed Tits, or “Enaga” as they are called in Japanese. This was exciting because I’ve been trying to get the little buggers for the longest time, and only just the other day got the first halfway-decent images of them (see prior post), but this time they were all over the place, and a few even stayed still for a while. A few of the images I got are here:

You’ve got to admit, they are incredibly cute little balls of fluff.