National
Researchers hurt at Ibaraki nuclear facility
At least four researchers suffer internal radiation exposure after an experiment on elementary particles goes awry at a Japan Atomic Energy Agency facility.
Environment | WILD WATCH May 19, 2013
Dwarf bamboo's no pushover whatever the season
by Mark Brazil
An unseasonably cold spring wind blasts in from the north shaking all before it. Oak trunks tremble; mast-like young white birches sway alarmingly and ineffectively rattle their branches at it.
Environment | WILD WATCH Apr 21, 2013
Nature art: It's in the 'I' of the beholder
by Mark Brazil
When a thing of beauty is perceived, the observer experiences some kind of a reaction; but what defines “beauty”? Is it art?
Environment | WILD WATCH Mar 17, 2013
Ski sortie takes a shrewd turn for the cuter
by Mark Brazil
It was cold and snowing and my mind was far away: I was already imagining returning to the warmth and color of the indoors after this, my latest winter sortie outdoors. It was only the rhythm of my skiing that was keeping me on ...
Environment | WILD WATCH Feb 17, 2013
Dancing Demoiselles of the desert
by Mark Brazil
In a dry, dusty, desert landscape, the clamoring of cranes seems so surprising. I am used to the great winter assembly of more than 10,000 cranes in Kyushu at Izumi, where they congregate on winter-fallow rice fields; and I regularly frequent the winter gatherings ...
Environment | WILD WATCH Jan 19, 2013
Impossible forests where tides ebb and flow
by Mark Brazil
A ripple flows gently inland across an expanse of dark-gray mud. It washes in, then drains back, dampening the surface; it briefly fills, then empties from, tiny holes made by innumerable small crabs. The ebb is over, and the flow tide has begun. The ...
Environment | WILD WATCH Dec 16, 2012
Beware: Devil birds at work in the woods
by Mark Brazil
The final months of the year seem something of an afterthought following the delightful palette of autumn colors; they offer only fickle moods and fickle weather. On November or December days of crisp, cold sunshine, when distant views beckon and late-flying dragonflies and late-flowering ...
Environment | WILD WATCH Nov 18, 2012
The little 'black bird' is a hit, from Liverpool all the way to Asia
by Mark Brazil
It is 50 years this year since the best-selling band in history, The Beatles, released their first single, “Love Me Do.” They were set to catapult Britain into the Swinging ’60s and launch a global musical phenomenon. It wasn’t so much that many of ...
Environment | WILD WATCH Oct 21, 2012
Singing the praises of greenery
by Mark Brazil
This year’s annual hop between the hemispheres in my capacity as a globetrotting nature-tour guide took me to my namesake country, Brazil, with strange and unusual hopes. Following the almost unprecedented heat of this year’s August in Hokkaido, I wondered if, for once, September’s ...
Environment | WILD WATCH Sep 16, 2012
Living the botanical high life
by Mark Brazil
Japan, though it has a very different image, is on the same latitude as southern Europe and North Africa, while my nearest city, Sapporo, is oddly enough on the same east-west parallel as France’s boisterously cosmopolitan second city of Marseille on the Mediterranean. Tokyo, ...
Environment | WILD WATCH Aug 19, 2012
The air around us is teeming with life — it's just too tiny to see
by Mark Brazil
As I approached the top of Mount Tarumae’s western peak, located in Hokkaido’s Shikotsu-Toya National Park, for a brief moment I thought an early reward was awaiting me in the form of clusters of ripe blueberries in the bush tops. At first glance it ...
Environment | WILD WATCH Jul 15, 2012
Slugs, snails and astonishing tales
by Mark Brazil
Late last month, I arrived at my friends’ house in the historic southwest English town of Stroud a little too early, only to find both Ian and Caroline Redmond out. So, with time on my hands, I wandered into their lovely garden on the ...
Environment | WILD WATCH Jun 17, 2012
Rock on down to a geopark near you
by Mark Brazil
To naturalists and hikers, the renown of 810-meter Mount Apoi near the southern tip of Hokkaido towers mightily above its lowly elevation. For the view alone it offers of the Pacific coastline south to spectacular Cape Erimo, it’s worth the easy trek up this ...