Nature – Bats in Shiga
For the second year running, I was lucky enough to be invited to join, and help out with, an annual research project that monitors a local colony of rare tube nosed bats.
Catching, tagging, weighing and recording data is the order of the day. I mostly helped out with putting tagged bats back in safe places where they could get over the trauma of being ‘researched’.
Here’s a selection of photo collages from the day. A full album can be found here.
Haikyo – Lost Love Hotels (Original Finds)
More love hotels for you today.
‘Hotel Penthouse’ which we spotted in a frozen field in the middle of winter, and a nameless place that’s both overrun and easily overlooked – despite being right next to a main road.
Although the find dates were a month apart, neither site was that huge so I’m going to bundle them together in a thematic double bill. Enjoy.
Haikyo – Animal Pens
A really brief haikyo update today.
Just three collages from photos taken at some old animal pens I found while out cycling.
There’s not much to be seen there now, exactly what kind of animals were kept here, or if there used to be some bigger structure here, isn’t really clear.
Later on in the same day I found a far more impressive place, a house, which will the subject of my next (much bigger) haikyo report.
Haikyo – Industrial Site (Original Find)
Recently it’s seemed that the discovery of one haikyo naturally leads to the discovery of another. This site is only a short drive from the electronics factory and we found it during a bit of ‘Let’s find a haikyo’ driving after leaving the factory.
It was too late and too wet for a proper search that day, but we jumped over the barrier on the side road leading up to the site, scrambled over the mound of dirt that had been bulldozed into place to stop vehicles from going up, and quickly counted four or five buildings in the area. Then we went back to the car, marked the location for future exploration and went home. (more…)
The Yokai Files – Tanuki – The myth and the reality
These ceramic Tanukis (Racoon Dogs), often seen outside Japanese cafes and bars thanks to some odd word association, are probably the most recognised images of these creatures.
Don’t worry I’ll explain the word association later!
However, in Japan there is a rich folklaw tradition built up around the image of the Tanuki which means he pops up in some unusual places and surprising contexts.
Fifteen Froggies of my Own
In honour of getting a comment from Michael (aka: Gakuranman, who has some fantastic hikyo posts on his site) on my recent Haikyo – Starting Small entry I’ve decided to do a tribute to his latest blog post Fifteen Fantastic Froggie Fotos and post fifteen frog fotos of my own.
15 froggy points if you can guess which picture wasn’t taken in Japan! (more…)
Total-Japandemonium 