Tag - wild-watch

 
Menu
Search
 
July 16, 2024
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

WILD WATCH

Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jul 16, 2008
Lives and a death
CHUKOTKA, Russia — This month, instead of writing this column as usual at my desk in Hokkaido, I am writing from a desk on board the Clipper Odyssey as we cross the Gulf of Anadyr in Russia's far northeastern Chukotka region. Our voyage began at Otaru, Hokkaido, and we have taken in southern Sakhalin,...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jun 18, 2008
Aloft with ospreys, ultimate Fisher Kings
There is a moment of commitment; a glint of scales just beneath the water's surface is perhaps the trigger. As the bright-yellow eyes register the rippled light patterns, the brain is already identifying them as potential food, computing distance, assessing direction, considering depth.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
May 21, 2008
A nature sanctuary for the ages
Regular readers know that my usual sphere is the biosphere and that I typically pursue wildlife in the wilds. Occasionally, though, one should step beyond home turf and try dipping a toe into a new stream of consciousness.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Apr 16, 2008
Omissions and risky commissions
For several years now I have been at work on a new book — to be titled "Field Guide to the Birds of East Asia" — that is due to be published later this year. You may think it would be an easy matter to put together such a tome; after all, ornithologists and birdwatchers have been studying...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Mar 19, 2008
Egrets' epitome of elegance
Late afternoon sunlight was slanting low, glinting like liquid gold, reflecting in the narrow strip of water between broad expanses of snow.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Feb 20, 2008
Nature tour turns sour as we see 'endangered' prey killed
A great white mass, a broken blanket of sea ice, was moving south down the Sea of Okhotsk carried on currents and blown by winds from the north. From the flank of Mount Mokoto it appeared like a mirage, a whitened margin to the sea's northern horizon, but from the much closer range of the cliff tops...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jan 16, 2008
Snow season's not what it was . . .
"Winter either bites with its teeth or lashes with its tail." (Traditional proverb)
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Dec 19, 2007
There's no time like snow time!
As much as I enjoy the rich biodiversity of the Tropics — as anyone who read my column here last month on the wildlife of Brazil will know — my favorite season is winter.
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Nov 21, 2007
Biodiversity to take your breath away
I promised that I would write more about my recent visit to South America, and as the first snows are now regularly dusting the mountains on view from my window here in Hokkaido — and even coating my balcony — it's hard not to reflect on times spent in warmer climes.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Oct 17, 2007
Individual variations and a sense of identity
I have recently returned to Japan from five astonishing weeks in the neotropics. Exploring and observing the riches of Brazil's Atlantic rain forest and Pantanal (the world's biggest wetland area) has left me overwhelmed by their biodiversity.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Sep 19, 2007
Serendipity twice over
On a calm evening, I looked out from my balcony toward the mountains to the west, beyond Sapporo. Those distant peaks stretched in an apparently unbroken chain, from the gently sloping flanks of volcanic Mount Tarumae at the southernmost end, rising and falling northward in a bold, time-weathered horizon...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Aug 15, 2007
Bliss for a Lazy Birder
Birders are often motivated by their species list — often something akin to their meaning of life.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jul 18, 2007
Putting 'rarity' into context
Stepping outside this morning, I heard a skylark singing above the open field adjacent to where I live. It's a rare event for me, but perhaps you hear skylarks all the time. Then again, perhaps you have never heard that silvery cascade of notes pouring endlessly from high in the sky.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jun 20, 2007
Gone are the geysers of Kamchatka
If a trip to the Valley of the Geysers on the Kamchatka Peninsula of Siberia had been figuring among your long-term travel plans, then I have sad news to impart.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
May 16, 2007
Seasons seen out of sync
I really thought I had missed out on spring this year. Having left Hokkaido when it was still blanketed with snow, I then spent a prolonged spell in South America before island-hopping across the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. It all left me overly warm (you can have too much of heat and humidity!),...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Apr 18, 2007
Cuteness belies killers' true nature
Movement in the snow; the surface bulges, bursts, and out pops a creamy-faced creature with round black eyes like tiny beads and a stare that seems to say "I can kill."
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Mar 21, 2007
Viewing nature in the best possible way
Ibegan writing natural history notes back in 1968; the immature handwriting in my first dogeared notebook is a reminder that then I was just a lad of 13. I was growing up in semi-rural Worcestershire in central England, and that was the year when, asked by my parents what I would like for my birthday,...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Feb 21, 2007
A wildlife odyssey to rank with any
Being both a columnist and an author is to be constantly in the midst of a kind of battle -- between short-term bursts of effort and rapid gratification, and long-term strategic planning, exertion, and inevitably delayed gratification.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jan 17, 2007
Seasonal waves of gold
I am fresh back from an exciting wildlife watching adventure in the national parks of Madhya Pradesh and Assam, India (more of that in a subsequent column). Thanks to the latest Internet and satellite software, I can zoom in to view the very area in Assam that I visited last week on the southern bank...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Dec 20, 2006
The swimming dead
The midwinter solstice is here again, and our nights have reached their longest and our days their shortest, driven by our planet's sun-centered rotation and the tipping of our orbiting Earth.
Bloodied Trump survives assassination attempt at political rally
Former U.S. President Donald Trump is surrounded and evacuated by Secret Service agents at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. Trump was rushed off stage at the rally after shots rang out.
How to beat Japan’s summer heat in ways better for the planet
Tenugui towels hang up to dry at a dyeing company in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, on May 8. The durable and versatile tenugui, which many people have in their homes, can be used in many ways to cool one’s body.
The neurological disorder that 'kills culture'
Akiko Trush says her experience with the neurological disorder dystonia left her feeling like she wanted to chop her own hand off.
Amid same-sex marriage ban, LGBTQ couples opt for 'photo weddings'
A lesbian couple, consisting of a 35-year-old woman (left) and 40-year-old woman, cover their faces with bouquets as they pose for wedding photos in Yokohama on Nov. 1.
China and Russia conduct joint Pacific military patrol
The Russian corvette Gromkiy enters the Chinese port of Zhanjiang as part of a joint China-Russia naval exercise on Saturday.
How to beat Japan’s summer heat in ways better for the planet
Tenugui towels hang up to dry at a dyeing company in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, on May 8. The durable and versatile tenugui, which many people have in their homes, can be used in many ways to cool one’s body.
After Trump shooting, U.S. presidential race might take a violent turn
United States Secret Service Counter Snipers stand guard on a rooftop during a campaign rally for U.S. President Donald Trump in Avoca, Pennsylvania, in 2020.
No AC this summer? No problem (for me).
Think air conditioning is a requirement for a Tokyo summer? Think again.
She’s paying ¥1 million to help behind the scenes at the Paris Olympics
Mai Tarumi, who previously volunteered at the postponed Tokyo Olympics in 2021, has a travel budget of ¥1 million for her trip to volunteer at the Paris Games.
How to tweak your diet when temperatures spike
Most people think of hydration as a strictly liquid-based concept, but eating foods with high water content is an essential part of making it through a Japanese summer unscathed.

Podcast

You can often see generations of families enjoying performances together at Fuji Rock Festival.
Japan’s summer music festivals are feeling the heat in more ways than one

Longform

Akiko Trush says her experience with the neurological disorder dystonia left her feeling like she wanted to chop her own hand off.
The neurological disorder that 'kills culture'
By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Omron helping firms achieve carbon neutrality
Omron helping firms achieve carbon neutrality

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER