Mark Brazil - The Japan Times

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Mark Brazil

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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

Dec 21, 2005

Soaking up surprises while out birding in the buff

Was it really just the other morning that I opened my eyes to behold a thick frost on the ground around me beside Lake Kussharo in the Akan National Park of eastern Hokkaido? It already seems an age ago.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Nov 16, 2005

Taking delight in decomposition

The autumn carpet of leaves along woodland and mountain trails deepens as each breath of wind spins more and more foliage from the trees and sends flakes of colors whirling across the landscape. Storms rip whole canopies of leaves away, snapping off branches and sending twigs raining down. Below, the...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Oct 19, 2005

Autumn sees predators in action

The hunters are abroad! Every day, now, the sparrow hawks, goshawks, honey buzzards, ospreys and falcons that summer in Northeast Asia are migrating out of the region. As cooler weather approaches and prey numbers decline, these predators head south for the winter. Soon, almost on their heels, the larger...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Sep 14, 2005

Taking it slowly to savor eco-exploring

These days, "eco" has become something like a random, loosely attached, brand name. Not associated with any particular company, nor with any particular product, eco -- which "Webster's" defines as a combining form meaning "environment or habitat" -- is applied seemingly indiscriminately.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Aug 18, 2005

What a curious wonder the walrus is

The walrus is a peculiar, even comical, creature -- and not only in Lewis Carroll's 1872 poem, "The Walrus and the Carpenter."

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Jul 21, 2005

Birds of no feather

It's a strange fact but true, that if you hike regularly in the Japanese mountains, you'll see some amazing sights -- and I don't mean just magnificent scenery.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Jun 16, 2005

Worlds of nature are just a click away

Although I've only just packed away my skiing gear (the remnant snowfields have crept too close to the peaks to make the physical cost of carrying heavy boots and skis so far uphill worth the downhill benefits), and though mountain cherry blossoms have only recently begun to shed their petals here in...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

May 19, 2005

Birders' islet of delights

The last month has been one of considerable atmospheric variety here where I live in Hokkaido, with laggardly spring weather lapsing back to winter sunshine and warmth, then being followed by snow and cold winds. It has been playing havoc with blossoming times, bumblebee emergence and spring bird migration....

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Apr 28, 2005

A dream comes true as one mighty ocean-dweller nests under myriad stars

It was as dark a night as I can ever remember, and one I will never forget.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Mar 17, 2005

Ancient birds, Stone Age music

All winter long, the cacophony of sound at Sunayu, on the eastern shore of Lake Kussharo in eastern Hokkaido, is almost entirely comprised if the bugling and whooping of swans.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Feb 17, 2005

Natural numbers games

As island nations go, I have always maintained that Japan sits on a motherlode of biodiversity; it is rich in so many senses of the word.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Jan 20, 2005

Wondrous fall whiteout heralded a warming winter of discontent

T here is nothing quite like writing controversially for stirring up a response, and commonly those responses come as a mixture of extremes.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Dec 30, 2004

What is behind 'shocking' Hokkaido bid for World Heritage Site status?

Recently I was lucky enough to visit no fewer than six World Heritage Sites (WHS) in northern India. An astonishing cultural, ethnic and biological diversity is well represented in India's array of national parks (NP) and WHS, and, my goodness, they have a huge wow factor.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Dec 16, 2004

Serendipities abound in a wintery wonderland

Recently I spotted a Quetzal from Central America, a Snowy Owl from the Arctic, a Short-tailed Albatross from a remote Pacific island -- and a hovering Skylark. Amazingly they were all together, along with woodpeckers and barbets, thrushes and flycatchers, finches, frigate birds, other albatrosses and...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Oct 21, 2004

On the woodland trail of sprites and fungal delight

Common sounds in the hill forests of northern Japan these days are the thin "tsiping" calls of Black-faced Buntings elusively flitting through the dwarf bamboo, as enormous numbers of them head south to milder climes.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Sep 16, 2004

The changes that come what may

The arrival of just one dramatic, even devastating, typhoon, storming to the center of the seasonal stage like a massively overblown diva with a case of bad timing, is enough to signal autumn is on its way. This year the global signs of the season change have been untempered in the extreme. Hurricanes...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Aug 19, 2004

Down in the grim intertidal zone

A coffee-shop friend of mine recently summed up his appreciation of our local lowland forest just outside Sapporo, saying: "You know, it's wonderful here; every season is the best season." And, you know, he has a powerful point.

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Jul 15, 2004

'Hideous alien' had an exotic past

Sometimes accidentally, sometimes to order, we humans transport a bewildering array of species about the world. Many of them wither under the regimens of their new environments; alas, some thrive to the detriment of the locals.

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

Jun 17, 2004

Some pictures worth 1,000 words

I take my hat off to those folk who can draw and paint. What a wonderfully inspiring skill. And when they can illustrate living creatures in lifelike form then I am in awe. What has prompted this outpouring is the fact that I am currently at work on a new field guide, so I am heavily involved in both...

Japan Times

ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH

May 20, 2004

On the trail of Japan's odd woodland dog with no bark

The first Ezo-tanuki (Hokkaido raccoon-dog) I ever found was a long-dead carcass along a woodland trail I used to frequent near Nemuro.

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.

The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan

By Johan Brooks

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