Animals and Wildlife at Enoshima

I took these photos while visiting Enoshima, a small island right of the Pacific Ocean coast in Japan’s Kanagawa Prefecture. Enoshima is superbly photogenic and I had enough photos just relating to animals that I thought I should make a proper post of it. The are tobi, squirrels, cats, dogs and fish! The tobi are the most majestic birds you are likely to see in the wild in Japan and they are everywhere. Normally when going birdwatching you need a really long lens for your camera but these tobi are so close that most average cameras should be able to get decent photos of them! Enjoy!

Fishing at Enoshima

In the 1970s Japan experienced a boom in sport fishing. All over the country men (and some women) would spend all weekends, for years and years, on fishing in rivers, lakes and on the oceans. Walk into any Japanese book store and try to count the dozens of dozens of fishing related magazines and you will start to understand the scope of the national interest in fishing. You are also likely to find fishing goods stores in any town in Japan. As the saying goes in the US, “it is a one horse town”, the saying in Japan might possibly be “it is a one fishing good store town”. If you are ever trying to bond with a Japanese man over 50, talking about either fishing or golf is almost certain to be a hit. These days the fishing craze has subdued a little. Young people are not so interested in it anymore, a fact which is visible in the recent demise of one of Japan’s longest running movie series, the Tsuribaka Nisshi (“The Fishing Maniac’s Diary”) of 21 movies (starring Toshiyuki Nishida, in my humble opinion one of the finest Japanese actors of all time and fantastically underrated abroad).

Even though, go to any body of water in the country and you’re bound to see a bunch of fishermen, around the clock. Some are doing it to relax, others as a way to spend their retirement and to get out of the house, others are doing it to put food on the table (the unemployed and homeless). I saw these well equipped sports fishermen at the far shore of Enoshima Island in Kanagawa Prefecture south-west of Tokyo. I saw them catch all kinds of fish, some squids and once even a large octopus. I hope to join one of my fishing friends some day for a proper boat trip out on the ocean!

The last photo is just a lucky shot of one of the original fishers of Japan – the bird of prey circling over the ocean with Mount Fuji in the background.

Black Kite – Kamakura

Please forgive me for posting even more photos of the birds of prey that Kamakura and Enoshima are so famous for! They’re just to photogenic! I brought out my 500m lens for last weeks trip to Kamakura and couldn’t stop myself from taking more snaps of these magnificent birds! Sadly though, there were quite a few people who hadn’t bothered reading the warning signs and more than one bento box (lunch box) exploded in scraps of rice and meat as these birds dive bombed hapless families and hungry couples left and right. These photos might not be as spectacular as the ones I took a couple of years ago, but they’ll do for this time!