Friday, July 3, 2009

Season of the Frog Part 2: Egrets

egret1

With the flooding of the paddies in late spring, there is an explosion of frogs. This has effects on other species in the vicinity, not the least of which is us gardeners. There are dozens of frogs in my garden, and as frogs eat insects, I'm quite happy about that.

egret2

Snakes come out from the forest and feast on the cornucopia of small frogs, and this afternoon I watched a flock of egrets come in for the feast. They don't mind vehicles driving by, but will up and fly away if a human gets within 100 metres.

egret3

The egret, related to and often seen with herons, can be found all over Japan, and in total there are 18 different species, but I'm not ornithologist enough to be able to tell which species these were,

tam3370

In the streams that run through villages and urban areas, the herons and egrets are less skittish.

tam3404

2 comments:

  1. Nice blog with a nice picture. It was nice going through your blog "Season of frogs" Keep it up the good work. Cheers :)

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