Little Visitor to my Backyard

by Toshiaki Nishi
(Wakayama, Japan)

At the back of my house is a tiny backyard. Every year in early winter we used to have a little visitor to this yard, a butcherbird.

When she came, she perched on top of the fence that surrounds the yard for a long time, gazing steadily on the yard. In the meantime she didn't move an inch as if thinking over something. When she found something like an earthworm, she suddenly flew into a dive aiming at the victim and flew away.

Every time she visited this yard, I became a captive to this series of movements of hers and watched her performance behind the curtain. But she doesn't come this winter and I miss her very much.

A small low hill behind my house was leveled into a flat ground and now the ground is used by the driving school. Many birds and insects which used to inhabit the hill were driven out of their home and I have no idea at all where they have gone.

This is a case of environmental destruction that took place in my immediate circle.

Comments for Little Visitor to my Backyard

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Lil Visitor
by: Bonita, Alabama

I have a neighbor who hung a bird feeder and left it there empty. Now I fill it and am excited to see if the birds will return. Like you (Japan) I enjoy just watching the movements. I hope your little friend will return.

butcher bird
by: Sachiko Tannen

Read Mr. Nishi's article. I didn't know the bird name and checked and found it's "mozu" in Japanese. The name is written in Japanese Kanji character as the bird with 100 tongues as this bird performs a complicated song in imitation of the call of various birds which is the origin of the Japanese name.

This bird is flesh-eating and has the habit that pricks a branch and the splinter of the tree with game.

Little bird
by: Linda, Long Beach Ca

Yes it is sad how we are destroying the pleasures of our earth . I'm sad that your little bird is no longer there . Being in an apt now I miss my birds, squirrels and other animals I use to see.

Your little visitor
by: Elna Nugent, Lenox, MA

Dear Toshiaki, I sympathize with the loss of your "little friend".

You have made an important point about the loss of the environment that attracted your bird.

If it wasn't for this bird and the intrusion of "civilization" that sent him away, you wouldn't have posted this letter that can help all of us become more aware that we must cherish our spaces that attract birds, which sadly are a slowly diminishing species.

Blessings, E.







by: Wendy

LOVE that you are from Japan... I think you are the first to visit my site from Japan and I've been doing this site since 2008. WELCOME!

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