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Mark Brazil

Mark Brazil, a Briton based in Hokkaido, has written about the natural history of Japan in his Wild Watch column for over 30 years. After careers in conservation and natural history television, Mark taught for nine years at a university in Hokkaido before going freelance. He now travels the world as a lecturer and leader on wildlife-focused expeditions.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Mar 7, 2015

Flight of the swan offers natural lesson

Each year the "angels of winter" wing in and out of Japan. They arrive, clamoring, on the gnarled back of autumn storms, their wings and the first snowflakes flurry together as if they, too, are an integral part of the changing season.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Feb 7, 2015

Natural strategies to cope with winter

Jan. 19 is officially the coldest day of winter. Called daikan (major cold), the day coincided with some truly bitter weather in northern Japan this year. The mercury plummeted to minus 27.3 in Furano, central Hokkaido, and minus 31.3 in Esashi in the southwest, and remained cold for at least a week....

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Jan 10, 2015

Modern technology aids whale research

In my last column of 2014, "Twelve ways to spend 2015 with nature," I mentioned the possibility of taking a whale-watching trip to the Ogasawara Islands. Ignore the international media hype about the country's pelagic whaling industry — it's a dying custom; instead, focus on the fact that Japan...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Dec 13, 2014

Twelve ways to spend 2015 with nature

As 2014 winds down and the promise of another year lies ahead, it's time to come up with a few New Year's resolutions. Instead of planning for the future or trying some new-fad diets or exercise regimes, how about a resolution to spend a little more time connecting with our wonderful natural world?

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Nov 8, 2014

Hanging around the threat of extinction

Night falls; stars are showing; yet I'm still perspiring. We set off in darkness into a night filled with hope. Our goal is to see one of the rarest creatures on Earth, a species once considered extinct, and for which even now fate hangs in the balance.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Oct 11, 2014

A perilous flight path of life and death

As I emerged into the pre-dawn darkness of Sept. 13, I was greeted by a brief flicker of movement. I wandered along one of the upper decks of The World, past the gently slopping pool with its ring of still-vacant sun loungers. I peered at the surprisingly real potted bushes, staring at their dense green...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Sep 13, 2014

Losing count of words for groups of animals

A recent brief visit to eastern England, my annual pilgrimage to speak at the British Birdwatching Fair, has stirred childhood memories of a nursery rhyme, stirred teenage memories of my first natural-history rambles, and was a subtle reminder of how quickly our language is evolving.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Aug 9, 2014

Gazing in awe on nature's flying bullet, the brown booby

"Sleekly elegant" is a befitting way to describe a catwalk model in the fashion world, suitable even for an ultramodern city tower or a bullet train, and appropriate on the race circuit for describing a pleasingly aerodynamic two-seater convertible. It is a surprisingly relevant way too for describing...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Jul 12, 2014

An audience with an island menace

By 8 o'clock on a warm early summer morning on Chichijima, one of Tokyo's Ogasawara Islands, bright sunshine was already threatening to overwhelm my light-sensitive eyes and the heat was cranking up in preparation for what I refer to as reptilian warmth.

Japan Times

LIFE / Travel

Jul 5, 2014

Off the beaten path on Japan's paper trail

At a little roadside store in rural Nagano, a foreign tourist is miming a rice bowl with her cupped left hand. Firm in the belief that Japanese washi (paper — wa meaning Japanese and shi meaning paper) was made from rice, she waves her flattened right hand across the "bowl," miming her desire for "sheets"...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Jun 7, 2014

Japan's efforts bring back 'extinct' species

Oriental stork 73; crested ibis 82; red-crowned crane 1,143; short-tailed albatross estimated 3,550. Those numbers of wild birds in Japan seem perilously low — and they are, especially when considered alongside the Japanese population of 126.75 million people — but in reality they are good...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

May 10, 2014

Rhododendrons, azaleas: blooming marvels of the plant world

Nothing tops turning a corner on a trail and encountering a sudden splash of pink, red or gold amongst the greenery.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Apr 12, 2014

Swimming upstream to become a dragon

While shuffling back from my early-morning dip in a hot spring at Kambayashi Onsen, I noticed the fish in the garden pond. They had gathered, heads together, in a strange starlike cluster, as if for a piscine tête-à-tête. They were languorously wafting their tails slowly through the water as if barely...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Mar 8, 2014

Noisy bulbuls change with the seasons

On cold winter mornings the bulbuls come squawking their full-throated calls as they swoop onto bird-feeders, their white-tipped gray breast feathers appearing frosted by the chill.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Feb 8, 2014

Weather in Japan: from balmy to barmy

The division of Japan into distinct climatic zones means that anyone traveling around the country will normally encounter quite predictable demands in terms of clothing requirements; while for those in any one area the local weather forecast will be correct more often than not.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Jan 11, 2014

Seasons come and go — but when?

Another new year has arrived and a Hokkaido blizzard is tearing past my window, drifting snow onto every surface as if it means to drown out the world in whiteness. Thankfully it also brings a muffling silence into which thoughts pop and crackle.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Dec 7, 2013

Tales from on the trail of Okinawa's rail

Thirty-one years ago I set off on a quest to look for a species so rare that it seemed as mythical as a Phoenix. Not only was it almost unknown, but also the Okinawa Rail had only recently been discovered. It was, as reporters like to say, a species new to science. Nothing was known about its numbers,...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Nov 9, 2013

Mammals choose when to reward my quest

My thoughts were miles away as I crossed the parking lot outside my Hokkaido home. Then a nagging doubt intruded: Had there — or had there not — just been a formless blur of movement on the ground beyond my car? I had certainly not seen anything, so if there had been something, then my awareness...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Oct 12, 2013

Just picture that — and know how to

A sleek, black anchor shape, etched against the blue sky, hurtles in pursuit of prey. A Northern Hobby, a flashy falcon, is chasing dragonflies. Sighting one alone speaks to me of summer in Hokkaido, especially with its mate brooding or feeding a growing fledgling in a nearby treetop nest.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Sep 14, 2013

On the trail of the legendary Koryak reindeer herders

The dark herd rushed at the slope like a massive wave crashing ashore. Hitting the base of the steep escarpment they were momentarily lost from my viewpoint; they surged upslope, reemerging into view on the upper terrace as a thundering horde, the vibration of their cloven hoof beats discernible through...

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