Coming of Age, Wryneck and snow-covered trees at Uji

Since I was on last, I have gone back to work and enjoyed another long-weekend as we have Monday (today) off work due to a National Holiday. Today is the Coming of Age national holiday. The Coming of Age festival is celebrated on the second Monday of January (it used to be celebrated always on January 15 until the year 1999). Its Japanese name is Seijin no hi. All young people who turn twenty years old in that year are celebrated on Seijin no hi. Twenty is the age considered as the beginning of adulthood. It is also the minimum legal age for drinking, smoking and voting. Apparently, celebrations are held nationwide in every town with most of the people turning 20 participating in formal dresses. It's been quite a while since I turned 18 now, jazuz, I'm approaching the age of Christ now...scary days!!

The two day week was quite nice last week, but like every other worker worldwide who went back to work after the holidays, it sucked big time. We had a New Years party at work on Thursday which consisted of everyone going up to the 17th floor for sandwiches, sweets, a mouthful of beer and, of course, speeches. Speeches. I'm sick of them. I just told those who were bothered to listen what I did over the New Year break. Simple and straight forward so that was fine. After that it was back to work.

Saturday was spent looking for thermals for the up and coming Hokkaido trip. The plane tickets have been booked so we are off on Feb 2nd and back on Feb 6th. I am really excited about this trip. Lots of birds to be seen and with a bit of luck, icebergs and ice floes. The rivers and lakes should be frozen and the sea aswell. With temperatures as cold as -20C, it will be a fabulous experience. I purchased thermal leggings and had the opportunity to try them out on Sunday, but first there's something else I want to share with you. I popped into Chopstick tattoo on Saturday evening, you know, just to have a look, see what the designs were like. It's not that I'm going to do anything about it. I mean, why would I need another tattoo?? You can check out the webpage below and have a look at Ton's work. He's a fantastic tattooist.

Chopstick Tattoo

Yesterday I met up with Neil at Chushijima at 7am (I was up since 4.30am) and we caught a local train to Uji for a bit of birding. Uji is a famous region throughout Japan for it's tea and also for the temples there. The temple on the back of the 10yen coin is found in Uji. However, our mission for the day was to go to a reservoir on the top of a hill there to see if there was anything about. It was a freezing cold morning, around minus 1C and I was glad I was wearing the thermal leggings unde my cords, 5 layers under my jumper, 2 hats and a pair of gloves. Baltic once again. Oh yeah, and my fab scarf my sister gave me for Christmas :) The area was beautiful with sloping hills, covered in trees, some evergreen, others naked in the winter dawn. A very hard frost coated everything in a beautiful ghostly sheen. The trees were heavy with snow, boughs bending under the weight of snow in some places, dumping their loads on our heads as we walked through some tracks in the forest. The roads were quite icy high up the hill and the snow was deep in the forests we trudged through.

An amazing Crested Kingfisher made itself known as we walked along the Ujia-gawa river bank just below the Amagase Dam, calling loudly and perching on a rock not too far away. Unfortunately I couldn't get my camera out in time so I missed an opportunity to get a photo. This kingfisher species is stunning, black and white stripes, a big crest that was constantly erect. Fantastic. A lifer for me. In fact, I had 3 lifers yesterday. The first was a loose flock of 61 Asian House Martin, found by yours truly. The second was the Kingfisher, which is bigger than a Jackdaw!!! The third and the best bird of the day, was a WRYNECK!! Yes boys, I finally caught up with a wryneck. This normally shy woodpecker (it doesn't look like one, but it is a member of a the woodpecker family), which turns up in Ireland during migration time, sat on a branch of a tree in a ditch and moved around for us to see it in all it's glory. A beautiful bird and one of my favourites. I was delighted and thrilled to have finally seen one. The picture below really doesn't do it justice...they are a marvellous bird to watch.

The steep road leading through the forest to the reservoir held one more surprise, in addition to the resident pair of Peregrines and the usual woodland species, a peculiar grunt preceeded a reluctant Woodcock rise from the stream-bed just below where we'd been standing for several minutes and barely clearing the ground fly no more than a few metres to disappear into a tangle of overhanging trees and bushes. Perhaps in climax it would've been fitting to find something of
interest on the reservoir to round-off the walk but but there's something perversely appealing about the expanse of birdless water at the end of the hike. The 12 Mallards, 2 Cormorants and a Little Grebe today didn't exceed expectations; perfectly.

An exhausted Carmo met up with TM in the afternoon, took in Harry Potter and had a bite to eat in Umeda, before heading to Kyobashi to meet up with the lads for beers to celebrates Vin's 30th birthday. It was a good laugh and I hauled my ass home for midnight. All in all, a good weekend with some socialising and birding combined to have a full day on Sunday.

On another note, the annual Great Island Bird Race took place on Saturday, I think it's the first one I have missed in the 17 years it has been running. The eventual winning tally of 94 species was shared between the enemy (East Cork Stringers) and my team from last year, with Ciaran taking my place. It sounded like it was a good day with 5 teams partaking. Next year, I will be there...at least I hope.

I hope everyone is back to normal now, back at work and making those January days drink-free in the hope to lift the January blues. It's a cold and beautiful day today, perfect light but I'm afraid there's work to be done here.

Carmo's diet: This week I've mostly been eating sushimi

Carmo's Birds: CRESTED KINGFISHER, ASIAN HOUSE MARTIN, WRYNECK, Brown Dipper, Redflanked Bluetail, Siberian Meadow Bunting (see photo above), Black-faced bunting, Dusky Thrush, Japanese White-eye, Woodcock and Peregrine Falcon. I've seen 184 species in Japan now.

Carmo's Birds for Bydy: Tall, blonde or brown hair, long legs...the rest I'll leave up to your imagination as this is a family show afer all :)