Tag - wild-watch

 
Menu
Search
 
May 02, 2024
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

WILD WATCH

Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jul 20, 2013
Building a case for birds
Many people would consider Stonehenge in southwest England or the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt — which both date from around 4,600 years ago — among the crowning glories of human achievement.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jun 16, 2013
Cycads: 'living fossils' with a deadly twist
Almost two months after revelers in most of Japan began partying beneath cherry blossoms in mid-March this year, we hardy northerners in Hokkaido were still waiting patiently for warm zephyrs to waft in with a late promise of spring.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
May 19, 2013
Dwarf bamboo's no pushover whatever the season
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.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Apr 21, 2013
Nature art: It's in the 'I' of the beholder
When a thing of beauty is perceived, the observer experiences some kind of a reaction; but what defines “beauty”? Is it art?
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Mar 17, 2013
Ski sortie takes a shrewd turn for the cuter
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 track and bound for home.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Feb 17, 2013
Dancing Demoiselles of the desert
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 of Red-crowned Cranes in snowy eastern Hokkaido. I have dreamed, too, of witnessing the hundreds of thousands of Sandhill Cranes that gather on migration on the Platte River in Nebraska.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jan 19, 2013
Impossible forests where tides ebb and flow
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.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Dec 16, 2012
Beware: Devil birds at work in the woods
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.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Nov 18, 2012
The little 'black bird' is a hit, from Liverpool all the way to Asia
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.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Oct 21, 2012
Singing the praises of greenery
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.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Sep 16, 2012
Living the botanical high life
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.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Aug 19, 2012
The air around us is teeming with life — it's just too tiny to see
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 appeared that the bushes were in fruit, and it was only on close inspection that I realized just how much hungrier I would have to be to enjoy that mountaintop snack — they were not fruit, they were beetles!
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jul 15, 2012
Slugs, snails and astonishing tales
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 slope of a hill overlooking the town and began to "potter about."
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jun 17, 2012
Rock on down to a geopark near you
To naturalists and hikers, the renown of 810-meter Mount Apoi near the southern tip of Hokkaido towers mightily above its lowly elevation.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
May 20, 2012
The wonder of feathers
A soft flake of seeming sky falls, wafts and floats earthward catching the light. Lightly, and soft as gossamer, it lands to add a splash of color to the greenery of spring. It may be no more than a tiny feather that's fallen from a passing bird, but it carries with it a message of mystery and miracle from the heavens.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Apr 15, 2012
Wild Watch turns 30 this month
As April 2nd's 30th anniversary of my first Wild Watch column in The Japan Times neared, I was in India — teeming Delhi to be precise, with its cacophony of people, honking traffic and barking dogs, though a tailorbird would stop and call outside my window, where a palm squirrel never tired of chattering.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Mar 18, 2012
Birds of a feather
A crescent moon is just visible through the treetops, with Venus, Jupiter and Saturn aligned diagonally above it crisp and clear in a frost-sharpened sky — planetary heralds of the peppering of stars soon to be revealed as night falls.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Feb 19, 2012
An ode to Japan's magnificent Sika Deer
Deep powdery snow is to a Sika Deer what a stage covered with fluffy feather pillows would be to a top-ranking ballerina. Both lead to loss of grace and floundering, for slim-footed deer and ballerina alike.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jan 15, 2012
Sealing a connection with nature
The cliff-ringed cape known as Notoro Misaki stands as a massive natural breakwater west of the city of Abashiri in northeastern Hokkaido, sheltering it from some of the might of the ocean.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Dec 18, 2011
There's more to Christmas colors than meets the eye
The rotenburo (outdoor hot spring) that I most regularly frequent creates an excellent illusion of there always being a full moon bathing in its glow those soaking beneath.
'So hot you can't breathe': Extreme heat hits the Philippines
A pedestrian cools himself with a folding hand fan as he waits for a ride along a road in Manila on Wednesday, as extreme heat hit the Philippines.
Did Japan intervene to prop up the yen? Analysts think it did.
A man walks past an electronic board displaying the exchange rate for the yen against the U.S. dollar (right) in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Town to block view of Mount Fuji in response to overtourism
The town government of Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, decided to set up a 2.5-meter-high screen to prevent tourists from taking pictures of Mount Fuji looming behind a convenience store.
Number of vacant homes in Japan hits record high of 9 million
A vacant house in Tokyo is seen demolished in January 2020.
Weak yen fattens tourist wallets in Japan
People visit the Ameya Yokocho market in Tokyo's Ueno district during the Golden Week holiday on Tuesday.
Kishida sets sights on energy and climate in South America trip
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will use a policy speech in Sao Paulo to set out his vision for ties between Japan and South America, almost 10 years after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe advocated for stronger ties between the two in the same city.
Yellow sand allergy: A health issue made worse by climate change
A screenshot of the Meteorological Agency's satellite image of clouds and yellow sand (in pink) on Sunday.
Climate change, chalky grains and the risks for Japan’s rice farmers
A farmer plants seedlings in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture. Japan’s self sufficiency rate for rice is nearly 100%, compared with 38% for food overall, on a calorie basis.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.
Theaster Gates’ ambitious ‘Afro-Mingei’ brings Black Chicago to Tokyo
Theaster Gates' “A Heavenly Chord” lines up church pews before seven speakers and a Hammond B3 organ, a type of electric organ prevalent in Black American churches.

Podcast

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.
[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

Longform

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.
Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Cultural properties:A Fujiya Hotel insider’s view
Cultural properties:A Fujiya Hotel insider’s view

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER