For all the talk of bears and monkeys in an earlier post, I have seen nothing of them so far. NOTHING! On the other hand, I’ve only been hiking through one of the largest cities on Earth, with only hints of a rural landscape at the end of the hike today, but still! Where are the monkeys? 🙂

Anyway, so far I’ve mostly come across a lot of different kinds of birds. Crows, ravens, Japanese starlings, azure-winged magpies, the Japanese wagtail, a few herons, a cormorant, some different kinds of doves, and loads of eurasian tree sparrows (and lots of birds I couldn’t identify along the Motokoyama river that I followed today). In addition to this I’ve also seen some cool fish in the rivers I’ve crossed.

There are also a lot of butterflies about, but if I had to try and take a photo of them, I would need some other kind of equipment than just my phone, or a lot more patience. Here’s a Japanese starling instead. It might not be the best picture, but it’s kind of interesting that while this bird’s plumage looks only in passing like a European starling, they still have the exact same kind of behaviour and flight patterns, and for the untrained ear, they sound mostly the same as well.

I will try to update with more posts about wildlife as I encounter them. On my list of want-to-see are kingfishers (of course!), the Japanese green pheasant (the kiji), and some monkeys!

Also, an anecdote. On the first day of hiking I was walking behind a couple of teenage girls when suddenly one of the screamed out as if the world was ending (or as if BTS had just split up), and stood still as a post. Her friend started running away, also screaming as if the world was ending (but more like as if Mrs. Green Apple’s sixth album due later in 2026 had been indefinitely postponed). The second girl then turned back, still screaming, and made a couple of attacks against the first girl (who was still rigid), with the sleeve of her jacket. I hurried my steps a bit thinking it was a large wasp, or something. Then the second girl managed to hit the insect and it bounced off the first girl onto the ground. Both of them ran away like 10 metres. I saw the insect on the ground and… it was a ladybird.

I’m not sure if both of them had some kind of ladybird phobia, or if there is a species of carniverous ladybird in Japan. I picked it up anyway and put it on a tree beside the road. If it was a member of the species Coccinellidae Japonicus Homocida Serialis, I was probably a bit foolhardy then.

Does anyone know if ladybirds are unknown to Japanese kids?