Fauna of Aogaki

What I love most about Aogaki is the Kakogawa River. While much of it is dried up it's still a haven for all sorts of animals and plants. My favorite thing to do is bike along it. It never fails to offer up something new and exciting. I cross it everyday on the way to work and ocassionally I break the rules and ignore the school-prescribed route back home so I can see what's going on in the river bed.

Today on the way to Kogenji Temple I forgot to cross a bridge that would let me hug the banks of the river, but I was still rewarded with plenty of opportunities to catch some local fauna on camera.



I really need a guide to birds and trees in Japan. I wish I could tell you what these are.



Neither Wikipedia nor Google will tell me what kind of dove this is.



I think these are black kites, but can't be certain. Where there is one there is certainly another nearby. Same goes with the crows that are on the next telephone pole. The crows are really amazingly intelligent and affectionate. I've seen pairs feed each other. They really love the cherry tomatoes in the garden next door (birds in general are pretty attracted to red).



The same pair again. I chased them between phone poles for a while until I could get a good shot of them. Sorry for being so annoying!



This is not the best picture. I can only zoom so far and I only have so many pixels, but you see that blue/green smudge in the center there? It's some sort of kingfisher. I've seen one once before near the high school.



A heron! These guys are all over the place and are really skittish. I had to hide behind a traffic sign just to get a picture. Half the time I stop along the river to look at something I end up scaring one of these guys up without having previously known they were there.

There was also a beautiful pheasant that landed right in front of me, but I couldn't get it on camera. Oh well! Next time.



Enough of the birds. Here's a weasel of some sort by the river. This guy came really close and wasn't afraid of me at all; just curious. Half the time I see these they have some juicy prize in their jaws. I've seen a larger mustelid of some sort romping through my backyard (I was eating toast and staring out the kitchen window when he entered stage left). It was twice the size and had a darker, redder coat without a mask. A sable or marten? ::shrugs::



This little frog was hanging out in this faux bamboo rail for a few days. I guess he was down. It's not easy being green.