A Year of Wildlife

On our walk yesterday Shuma and I saw tonnes of birds, including two snowy egrets, lots of ducks, and exactly twenty-four ducklings. One mommy duck had twelve babies! Is it even possible for a duck to lay and successfully hatch a dozen eggs at once? Or was she babysitting? I don't know, but they were adorable.

It seems to be a tradition to have neat animal sightings the day before a big trip. Last year, the day prior to a visit back home, I witnessed one of the most incredible wildlife episodes ever. It could have been on Animal Planet or National Geographic except that it involved two rather mundane creatures: a crow and a rat. Oh, but what happened was anything but mundane.

Hideaki and I were just walking out of the local convenience store when I saw a minor commotion in front of us: a rat scampering down the sidewalk and a crow hopping along the road beside it. Crows are numerous in Tokyo, so much so that they are considered pests, but rats are a rare sight (they're there of course, you just don't usually see them). So I stopped to watch what was going on, figuring they were fleeing from one of the neighborhood stray cats.

But when the rat scooted under a parked car and the crow started hopping around the car and trying to get under it, I started to wonder who was fleeing from who. And when the rat darted into some bushes and the crow flew in pursuit it became clear that the crow was after the rat. Now Japanese crows (a variety called jungle crows) are huge beasts, and I know they are omnivorous, but I thought their hunting was limited to bugs and worms and the like. This rat was fully half its size, and I assume as wily and vicious as any wild rat. This was either a very hungry or very badass crow.

After a few minutes of hiding in the bushes the rat made a run for it, heading across the sidewalk and past us (a little too close for comfort) and into the convenience store parking lot. Which was walled on two sides and open to a street and the sidewalk on the other sides. The crow flew right behind it and the rat headed straight to the walled-in corner where it was, of course, trapped. It dashed back and forth and tried frantically to jump up the wall- holy cow could it ever jump high! Not high enough though, and in a desperate last-ditch effort to escape it ran out into the street. Where the crow finally swooped in and grabbed it, catching it with such ease that I couldn't help thinking that it could have ended the chase long before then and had just been toying with the rat.

So the crow flew awkwardly away, the squirming rat squirming in its claws. And we both stood there with our mouths hanging open, asking each other "Did you see that?". I wasn't sure how to feel, like in a documentary where there's a cheetah chasing a gazelle and you want to root for the gazelle but you know the cheetah has to catch it to survive so you're also rooting for the cheetah and you just wish the cheetah would come across some already dead animal (that had died peacefully of old age of course) and let the gazelle go and they'd all live happily ever after. Except this was the exact opposite of that and I was kind of hoping the crow and the rat would somehow both get eaten.

I've kept a close eye on the crows since then. There are several times of year when they're especially numerous and active: they love eating wild cherries in early summer and persimmons in the autumn, and they really like a kind beetle that comes out in June and the tent caterpillars that come after that. And they go absolutely apeshit over the cicada pupas that crawl out of the ground in July and August. But the biggest prey I've seen them stalk so far is a squeeze bottle of Kewpie mayonnaise.

Soon after the crow incident I was in Canada facing even greater perils: fire ants. They have invaded my hometown, apparently because our winters are no longer cold enough to keep them down south in America where they belong. So I was unable to go to the local park for berry-picking or walks with my Dad (which always involve lots of standing around while he looks for some special bush or something he saw last year) without either wearing shoes and socks or suffering the painful consequences. And I hate wearing shoes and socks in the summer almost as much as I hate pain. It was awful.

There was also supposed to be an invasion of deadly hogweed, which according to the Toronto papers would either blind or kill all who come across it. We never saw any though (but the fire ant-covered plant above was a suspect for a while), and after a couple of days of weedy hysteria I never heard about it again. Toronto folks: whatever happened with the hogweed?

Also while I was back home, I kept a brief journal and this is an entry from the first week:

"Woke up at 6, hiccups. Nobody up yet, nothing to do, nothing open. Looking out window to backyard saw 3 squirrels, cardinal, sparrows, blackbirds, turtle dove, grackle, starlings, budgie, mouse."

And now I remember it. The hiccups refer to the baby in my tummy, who used to hiccup at least once a day (and he kept it up until he was about three months old- now I really miss it). My dad has several birdhouses and feeders set up in the backyard, which mostly attract squirrels but also bring in the occasional bird. Cardinals are always a treat to see. We used to get more blue jays- I think the West Nile virus wiped most of them out. And last year for a few weeks a budgie was a regular at our bird feeders. We were planning to try to catch it and then put up signs looking for its owner, but one day it just stopped coming around. We figure either it found its way home or a cat ate it. Or maybe a crow got it.

(Off topic, but the journal's entry for the day before is "Mango run. Man behind me at checkout asked what they were.". I love how my dad and I went crazy for mangoes last year, I love how a stranger asked me about my produce (would never happen in Japan), I love how there are people who don't know what mangoes are, and I love that I wrote it down because I would have forgotten it otherwise.)

Back in Japan last year, while walking at our local park, I did a double take when I passed what appeared to be a chicken. It was a chicken, pecking away at the grass like it belonged there. Now this is Wako Jurin Koen, a fairly large and verdant park in Wakoshi, Saitama. It's not central Tokyo, but it's not farm country either and you certainly don't expect to see livestock while out for a stroll. So that evening I mentioned it to Hideaki and he said "Oh, you saw the chicken?". All casual-like, no big deal, as if I'd mentioned seeing the neighbors roses in bloom or the Big Dipper or something.

So apparently he'd seen the chicken a few times before and had not found it remarkable enough to mention. Which proves that he really doesn't know anything about me, because that's just the kind of news that would make my day. Hell, it would probably make my month.

We wondered how it could survive in the park, a place where there's always lots of people walking their dogs, and a small population of stray cats, and in the summer a few homeless men, who surely must get hungry. And those crows! It's a total mystery. But while Hideaki continued to spot it occasionally, I didn't see it for months. I was starting to get worried, and then one day in the fall while out walking with my little newborn Shuma I saw it. That's him above, isn't he a beauty? It seemed totally unafraid and I was able to get close, but not too close- see those murderous claws? I had a baby to protect.

There was a man nearby who looked like he knew the chicken, so I asked him what the deal was. And I am able to report to you all that I still don't have a clue, because I couldn't understand a god-damn thing he said. A combination of the muffling effect of the face mask, some kind of weird provincial accent, and just the generally unintelligible way old Japanese men talk caused his long, and no doubt very helpful and interesing, explanation to be completely lost on me. But my guess is that it's his pet and he brings it to the park on nice days to eat bugs and stuff. To fatten it up, I suppose. Come to think of it, I haven't seen the chicken in months.

Comments

[Carol-Anne Conway]

Loved this post. Reminded me of the time a woman in the supermarket asked me what my celeriac was called and what I would do with it.

Also reminded me of the old gent feeding the herons opposite the Ann Frank House in Amsterdam. My sister-in-law had a long conversation with him (she speaks Dutch, I do not). When I asked her what he had said she replied that his accent was so thick she hardly understood a word he'd said.

BTW, what is a grackle?

[Aspasia]

The crows and blue jays here were affected by West Nile but they seem to be coming back now. I don't think our crows are nearly that badass--I once saw a squirrel scare two of them away from food. I do feel sorry for the rat in your story, though--it was clearly desperate to get away and crow can get by eating other things. Yes, I feel sorry for a rat. I also haven't heard a thing about the hogweed in ages--will keep an eye out for news.

[Robyn K]

That's not just a chicken, it looks more like a rooster! I would be very wary of approaching it as they are actually very strong and you're right to worry about the sharp talons. This is why they can survive in the wild! My chickens chase the local cats, and the crows too for that matter. Chickens are great forage animals and will live quite happily on bugs and grass and tiny stones to grind it all up. Still, it's pretty cool that you've got one at the local park. My guess is that someone bought a laying hen and got a rooster instead (it's very hard to tell when they are young) and then let it go in the park instead of killing it. Sometimes people do that around here.