Birds of Yokosuka--updated links

This is an older post, but I noticed that some of the links are broken.  I am unable to update the original post, so here is a new one. 

I remember that one of the first things I saw out the window of the Navy Lodge our first morning in Yokosuka was a pair of cormorants flying just above the water. It seemed like something out of an exotic children's story. Then when my husband walked us around to show us the base, I couldn't keep my eyes off of the huge raptors that were perched on poles and buildings around the base. But identifying the birds here can be a bit tricky. 

The library has a couple copies of Birds of Japan, which is sadly out of print and hard to find used. Birds of East Asia is a newer book, but it is both big and a little expensive for casual users. But I have found a nice website, created by a local geography teacher that includes a section on the Birds of Yokosuka 

One of our friends printed the bird ID section as a handout for scouts who had to do some bird watching. It was nice to only have a few pages instead of a huge book. I have seen some other birds out at the campgrounds at Ikego, notably Common Kingfishers and Spot Bill Ducks. 

Interesting Japanese Grasshopper

I was trying to identify a giant insect that we had land on our balcony last summer. In the process I found a cool site with little posts about insects and other animals in Japan. Natural Japan is based in Kyushu (southern Japan). But even so, it has some good info. If you can narrow your search down to an order (like arachnids - spiders, lepidoptera - butterflies & moths, or orthoptera - grasshoppers & related insects) you can click on that term in the sidebar and see all the entries for that order.

By the way, the lovely on the balcony was an oriental long headed locust. Below is another one that we found last fall on the soccer fields. I think it's interesting that they seem to change colors as the rice in the fields changes from green to golden brown. If you're headed out to harvest rice this fall, or just hanging around the soccer fields, keep an eye out for these hoppers.

Hiking Around Yokosuka

Here are some hiking trails in the area.

Daibutsu hiking trail. This is a longish trail in Kamakura that can be hiked in several different segments. We started in Hase (near the Great Buddha), hiked the ridgeline, then came down into town and hit a couple of the Kamakura shrines. You can also hike all the way up into Kita Kamakura. Pretty gentle hike once you get to the top of the ridgeline, but would be very slippery when wet. More walks and hikes in Kamakura

This is my source for other hikes around Yokosuka. The site is in Japanese, but I use Google translator. The trail maps are all in Japanese and don't translate, but I've had pretty good luck by matching up the kanji for the train stations to figure out where the trail goes. These range from easy city strolls to trail hiking.

Last week we did the hike from Keikyu Taura to Yokosuka. This one is about 5 miles, but has a lot of change in elevation. It goes up to a plum forest park in Taura that has a really great kids' playground if you are taking younger kids as tag alongs. We hiked this one by taking the train to Taura and hiking back to the base. Lots of vending machines along this route, so you don't have to carry a ton of water. There are also drinking fountains and bathrooms at both parks where you can refill water.

I also like the Dollars to Yen blog for hiking and park/playground ideas. The blog author lived in Ikego for a couple years and recently moved down to Okinawa. She has posts with good pictures of several of the local trails.

Books in the base library that are useful include 40 Day Trips Around Tokyo and 40 More Day Trips Around Tokyo as well as Trails of Two Cities. Another fun book is Kamakura: Fact and Fiction. This has wonderful history tidbits about what you will see all around Kamakura. All of these are in the Japanese interest section beyond the internet computers.

Boy Scout Troop 15 in Tokyo has a series of historic trails laid out through the Tokyo metro area. If you hike three of the trails, you can then buy one of the historic trail patches. (Trails are about halfway down the page.) This page also has a good reference for plants and poisonous animals in Japan.

Free Science and Literature Studies

One of the exciting things about homeschooling is the number of families who are writing their own curriculum to suit a particular interest or area of focus. Sometimes this is tweaking of something already in print. Sometimes it is a full fledged series of books and activities. Story of the World, by Susan Wise Bauer, for example, started out as a series to fill a niche that she thought was lacking, that of a world history continuum for the elementary grades.

Even cooler is the fact that the internet allows some families to share their creations with the world at large and for other homeschoolers to benefit too. And it is great when some of what you find is available for free.

Little Blue School has several literature units that the author developed for use in her coop in Norfolk, Virginia (which almost makes me want to put Norfolk on the top of our duty station wish list).
Aeneid
Treasure Island
Elections
Novel Writing (This is a great breakdown of the parts of a novel, even if you don't sit down and write your own.)
Jungle Book

The blog Handbook of Nature Study has lots of resources for focusing your time outdoors. Barb sells some of her studies as inexpensive ebooks, but also has lots of nature study ideas that can be downloaded for free. Don't miss the Outdoor Hour Challenges and the free downloads on the sidebar.

I also found a blog called Fieldwork that was posting a series of lessons in marine biology/oceanography. She ended up only finishing 24 of the 34 she had planned, but I still think it is a nice resource. Something that I like about her approach is that it is hands on and could be used as a basis for exploring any seaside, not just the east or west coast of the US. That's something that has been important to me since we've spent the last decade living beyond the scope of most English language field guides.

Yokosuka Area Attractions

I found some cool tourist brochures when we were out at Kannonzaki Park this weekend. There are several different guides, each on a theme (flowers, history, seaside attractions, etc). Turns out that they are actually produced by Coco Curry, a local chain restaurant. If you go through the website and use a translation program like Google Translator, there is quite a bit of local history and information on local Yokosuka attractions hiding here.

I even found a few Yokosuka area hiking trail maps like the trail over Takatoriyama (I think it starts at the Oppama station) or a trail around Taura that starts near the Yokosuka JR station.

Meigetsuin Temple in Kamakura

Another great temple to see hydrangea and iris flowers is the Meigetsuin temple in Kamakura.

To get to the temple, you head on the JR train to Kita-Kamakura, one stop past Kamakura. From there, you cross the tracks (coming from Yokosuka), make a right, and a pleasant, short walk until you reach the end of the street. Turn left and you'll run right into the temple entrance.

The fees into the main part of the temple are reasonable at Y500 for adults and Y300 for students. There is a fee for the "hidden" back part of the temple, another Y500 per person. If you like iris flowers, it might be worth going into once.

There are several varieties of hydrangea all over the temple grounds.

The historical aspect to this temple is interesting.

All in all, a beautiful temple.

Kris

Hydrangea Time

June brings the hydrangea to the area. I'm sure you've seen them along the roads in all their incredible colors. The place to go, though, is the Hasedera temple in Kamakura, not far from the Great Buddha. I went up there yesterday on a photo safari and boy were we treated to a surprise of color. The temple was crowded, but it was well worth it. In addition to the hydrangea, there were also many irises in the ponds. I've been to the temple several times during different parts of the year, and I have to say this is one of the most colorful. I never knew there were so many different varieties of the flower. At the top of the temple, you can get a free fan with a map of the area and photos of the various varieties.

To get to the temple, you take the JR line to Kamakura then connect to the Endoshima Line and exit at Hase station. Exit the train station and go up the hill towards the Buddha, turn left at the Hasekannon intersection. The temple is at the end of the road--just follow the crowds! Entrance is 300 yen for adults and 100 for children 6-11.

Birds of Yokosuka

I remember that one of the first things I saw out the window of the Navy Lodge our first morning in Yokosuka was a pair of cormorants flying just above the water. It seemed like something out of an exotic children's story. Then when my husband walked us around to show us the base, I couldn't keep my eyes off of the huge raptors that were perched on poles and buildings around the base. But identifying the birds here can be a bit tricky.

The library has a couple copies of Birds of Japan, which is sadly out of print and hard to find used. Birds of East Asia is a newer book, but it is both big and a little expensive for casual users. But I have found a nice website, created by a local geography teacher that includes a section on the birds of Yokosuka.

One of our friends printed the bird ID section as a handout for scouts who had to do some bird watching. It was nice to only have a few pages instead of a huge book. I have seen some other birds out at the campgrounds at Ikego, notably Common Kingfishers and Spot Bill Ducks. The section on the Yokohama Nature Sanctuary has pictures of these birds.

Common Japanese Spiders

One of the challenges of homeschooling overseas is trying to do nature study when you can't read any of the guidebooks.

Hooray for the internet. You can find a lot of information out there, just by searching something like "common spiders Japan" or "snakes of Japan." If you search through Google images, you can often figure out just what you're looking at.

If you're trying to identify just what spider has spun a web over the trampline or what the huge arachnid over the door of Chili's is, you might want to check out Common Spiders in Japan, which has photos of spiders grouped by season of the year.