Tsurezure #whatever – Hooded Cranes

I have lost track of how many of these I have written, AND of how many I have posted to my blog. So, forget the numbers. Forget the lists. Let’s just do this thing.

This column went out early this month and describes my joining a local birdwatching excursion to see the hooded cranes/ナベヅル of Yashiro district. These birds are not particularly rare, and over 10,000 nest down south in Kagoshima Prefecture. However, the only spot on the island of Honshu where any come to spend the winter is in this tiny farming town in the mountains here. This year, 13 birds came, and the local birders all had to go try to get good pics. I have discussed this before, but technically we are only supposed to watch and photography from a designated “observation post” which is often a real pain, as sometimes the birds don’t come anywhere near. This time, though, was different.

Eight birds in two groups came close on either side, and a few even flew right over our heads. It was quite a chance.

Three cranes flying against the blue sky. They are in a diagonal line from top left to bottom right, and their wings are in varying beat patterns.

A shot of a crane flying directly overhead in silhouette against the blue sky.

A pair of cranes with black bodies, white necks and heads, and a dark patch over their beaks. Shot in monochrome.

A picture of this story printed in a Japanese newspaper.

ナベヅルの大サービス

ライオンジミー

2月23日の午前、周南市八代町で15人の野鳥愛鳥家が集まりました。日本野鳥の会山口県支部の探鳥会のイベントでナベヅルを始めとする地域の野鳥を観察・撮影することが目的でした。もちろん僕も参加でした。

以前も他の野鳥の会イベントには参加しましたが今回は初めて皆さんとナベヅルを探す機会でした。山口県の宝物で且つ県鳥であるナベヅルは警戒心が高く暖かく見守るスタンスが大事ですので八代で野鳥観察するのはどちらかと言うと遠慮しがちです。でも今回はきちんとしたマナーを守って案内する形でしたので喜んで行ってみました。

まずは皆で川添の散歩感覚で小鳥を観察しました。ミヤマホオジロやカワラヒワ・スズメ等が豊富でしたが僕にとっては初めてのアトリスポッティングが一番うれしかったです。

そのあと皆さんとナベヅル観察所に向かいました。ナベヅルを驚かせないことが大事なので、基本的には観察所敷地内からのみというのは観察の決まりです。ということは見に行っても近くないことが多く運が悪い時は全然見えないという事です。でも今回はなんと！！観察所近くには8羽いました！

観察所から道路に向かって5羽、前の田んぼで3羽の親子もいました。探鳥会の皆さんが大興奮しながら撮影して望遠鏡で観察していました。

でもそれからです。5羽のナベヅルがすぐ飛び出して、頭の上まで寄ってきました。まさに「大サービス」でした。

野鳥観察者としては大満足だったので、そのあとは近くの山まで行きました。八代の美しい自然の中を歩きなが、野鳥のさえずりを聞いたりするのは本当に癒されます。

雪が降ってきたのですぐ解散となりましたが皆が目的達成して喜んで帰ったと思います。僕は確かにそうでした。

ちなみに日本野鳥の会山口県支部は県内各地で定期的に探鳥会を開催するので是非ネットで検索して確認してみてください。近くの場所で可愛い野鳥を観察して自然の事を学ぶ事ができるとても良いチャンスです。

Tsurezure #11 – Autumn Musings

I seem to be catching up on myself with these posts (and messing up the numbering) but here is another of my Japanese language columns for the Setouchi Times newspaper. It’s about autumn in Japan versus autumn in my home. It’s a bit of fluff, but sometimes that’s all right.

A bonfire of paper lanterns on a dark autumn night.

秋について

秋が大好きです。「春か秋か」どちらがが好きかと聞かれれば春が勝つかもしれませんが必ずしもそうとは言えません。日本の秋は「食欲の秋」として美味しい食材がいっぱいですし涼しい天気で外遊びも楽しいです。もちろん紅葉の景色は良いシャッターチャンスを与えてくれます。

アメリカに住んでいた時でも秋が大好きでしたが理由がちょっと違います。

アメリカ・カンザス州の秋は日本と同じように収穫の季節で紅葉もあって、暑い夏が終わり外の天気が涼やかになる季節です。収穫祭的なサンクスギビング（感謝の日）はアメリカ人にとってクリスマスの次に大切な祝日であり11月にあります。

でも日本と違って欧米の秋も恐怖の季節です。秋とは世の中のあらゆる物が死んでいく時期なのです。木の葉が枯れて散り、たくさんの鳥が渡っていなくなり、いろんな動物も冬眠等して見えなくなります。太陽の光も弱っていく感じで徐々に寒くなって日が短くなります。そしてもちろんハロウィーンがあります。

大昔、ハロウィーンは子供にお菓子を配る日ではなくスピリチュアル的な祭日でした。古代の信仰では11月1日は新年が始まる日で、その前の夜にはこの世と霊界の間の壁が開けて、亡くなった方の霊が自由に行き来が出来ました。その霊がいたずらのしないように各家庭では美味しいものを玄関前において満足に食べさせたという説もあります。

長い年月を経て欧米のハロウィーンが変化して今は二面があります。一つは単純に楽しい祭日的なことです。

その信仰深い祝日が近代のワイワイ的なハロウィーンに進化しました。怖いコスプレをしている子供たちがいたずらしないようにおいしお菓子を配って楽しいことばかりになりました。

でも、まだまだ霊的な実質的に怖い面も残っています。日本の夏みたいに怪談を語る会もあります。ホラー映画は10月中にテレビに放送され映画館でも上映されます。

僕は怖い事が大好きな少年でした。（今はちょっと弱虫になったけど、まだまだ気味が悪い話が好きとも言えます…）ホラー小説を毎日のように読んでいてホラー映画を一人でドキドキしながら見ていました。なので秋は本当に自分に合っていたといつも感じていました。

日本に住み始めたころ夏は怖い季節という事にちょっと違和感がありましたが年を取るとやはり日本の秋の雰囲気が好きだなと思うようになりました。

だって、焼きいもと栗ご飯がぶち美味いんです！！

A few recent pictures

I took a few pictures that I like recently, so here you go.

A couple of the crops are unconventional, but these aren’t for printing, so who cares?

Winter birds are best birds

The weather here has turned—well and truly, finally—to winter. Which means both dusky days, and winter birds.

Many of the birds I associate with winter, like white eyes or long-tailed tits, are present year round but are more visible because of bare branches. Others, like the ducks that stop on the rivers, are just passing through. All are welcome sights, though, making the cold walks worth it.

Here are some I spotted today, December 21, 2024. For the record.

A small, round, white and black bird perched in a bare tree. — Long-tailed tit outside the library.

A small duck with dark green patches on its face taking flight from a brown river. — Long-tailed tit outside the library.

2024 – Stuff I loved

It’s inevitable, I guess, to get retrospective at this time of year. I’ve more or less stopped keeping careful track of things like media consumption—no Goodreads lists for me, thank you—but it’s still sometimes interesting to review. And so, here is a non-comprehensive list of things that I remember enjoying very much in 2024. Travel, books, TV, whatever, I’m not going to be strict. These are all things that made my 2024 a better year than it would otherwise have been.

First up, I visited Inbe in Bizen, Okayama several times this year. It was wonderful. I met potters, enjoyed the scenery, and learned about its history and culture in a way that was vibrant and exciting.

A concrete torii gate stands across a bricked path. To each side are reddish brown ceramic koma-inu dog statues.

A small ceramic flask with a rounded shape and a sharp indentation along one side.

A rounded lump of clay kneaded into a folded, almost floral pattern

Another thing that made my 2024 better was engaging more actively and thoughtfully in photography. I’ve written about it before, but even apart from whatever high-minded ideas about “art” or “creativity” people want to layer onto it, the very fact of engaging in a new expressive medium has been great. I have been a “word guy” all my life. Trying to be an “image guy” now is really something special for me.

A smiling older man with a mustache. He is wearing a towel on his head, a large watch, and a black tanktop and is flexing his muscular arms. — Macho man

In the world of books, there have been a few standouts. The one that stands largest in my memory is The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera, which I reviewed on this blog. There’s not much else to say about it, except that its weight in my memory has only grown with time. Read it.

I also read and loved Premee Mohamed‘s The Siege of Burning Grass. It is a fantasy story set in a world at war, but the central protagonist is a true pacifist despite the brutal social pressures on being a good, patriotic subject of empire. It is a story about the irrationality of war and the true courage that is pacifism, and the pain that occurs when those are placed in irredeemable conflict. I should have reviewed it more thoroughly. It deserves much thought and rereading.

Another standout is the Japanese-language only (so far) horror book Kinkichiho no aru basho ni tsuite (About a certain place in the Kinki region) by Sesuji. It’s a “mocumentary” horror book that presents itself as a collection of research materials for a magazine, but ends up telling a story of generational evil, the terrors of the Japanese countryside, and creepy stuff in general. I loved it. I think the translation rights have been sold, but that is so far unconfirmed.

In related media, I still think about Fake Documentary Q a lot. I wish the book had been better.

Apart from all the old music I mostly listen to (shout out to Eric Satie’s Gymnopédies), the new album I listened to most is Daudi Matsiko’s The King of Misery. It seems perhaps inappropriate to talk about “enjoyment” regarding such an emotionally shredding/shredded work of art, but it is beautiful and alive and well worth listening to.

And, lest anyone get the idea that I went all high-brow and Big-C Cultural in 2024, I also watched the hell out of the Reacher series on Amazon Prime because there’s something unironically appealing about watching a very big man murder the fuck out of the Bad Guys.

What were some things that made your 2024 less terrible?