Japan Day Two: Yoyogi Park

Suzume, Yoyogi Park, Tokyo, Japan

Up at dawn (4:30 a.m.) I decided to walk up to Yoyogi Park. The previous day I had noted a spot marked "Bird Sanctuary" on the map and decided to check it out.

Suzume [oh autofocus...]

First a few words about tree sparrows (suzume). They, like their house sparrow relatives, are ubiquitous. You can find them in the city, in the forest, in the mountains, by the seashore, in wetlands, in grasslands. But they are more charming and less despised than house sparrows (which are still rare Japanese vagrants). Males and females look alike. And males actually sing. Or maybe it's better to say they advertise for their "song" sounds a lot like their chirpy calls. At any rate, there are a lot of suzume in Yoyogi Park.

Bird sanctuaries in Japan are taken seriously as sanctuaries. They are often surrounded by fences to keep humans out. Humans can only peer in from the outside.

Yoyogi Park Bird Sanctuary

Vistors to the park are admonished to do nothing that might bother the birds.

Here are some of the birds that might be there.

I heard a mejiro and saw a yamagara. That's about it.

I wonder if the cat did any better.