Time flies when you're having fun!

Ken, Zia, and little Ryden arrived very late Thursday night ... or maybe by then it was Friday morning.

Happily for me, they were able to take a train into town so I didn't have to drive them home from the airport late at night.

When a family of naturalists get together ... what do you suppose we do? Well, we started out near our home turf at Shakuji-koen. The pond here is at the start of the Shakuji river that runs near our home and we thought it might be a good place to check out the local birds.

It has been nearly fifty years since I visited the park and I was surprised to see how developed the area that was once countryside had become. There was a small visitor's information center with a naturalist on duty and we could find out what to look for and where, though the winter had been mild and most of the migrant birds had left.

Ryden had lots of energy to burn off after the long plane ride and he headed for every set of steps going up, every side-hill grade going up, and even up the trees bending over the waters of the pond.
I guess we won't have to worry about his getting up in the world because he is headed there already.

Zia is an amazing photographer, especially when it comes to birds.


As for me ...
well, do you know what this picture is?

It is the shot I took of a cute Little Grebe.


Well, it was there a second ago ...

I think it was playing
now-you-see-it, now-you-don't.

Something that moves a bit slower might be more my style like the great Gray Heron ... but after seeing  Zia's pictures, I think I had better stick to other subjects.

I don't think I was cut out to be a wildlife photographer.

Now this is more like it ...


My kind of "wild life".

Norie and Leia came for dinner and stayed over....

and plans were made for the next day's adventures. (And a list of items to be covered the rest of the week made by Norie and Paul busily off in another corner of the rooma0



Leia and Ryden enjoyed story time.
(I think Ken got to check out the whole shelf of kid's books in a very short time.)


Saturday they went off to Machida with Norie for some kind of drum activity. They came back with home-made drumsticks and lots of experience at beating on drum-like objects. Jet lag didn't seem to be slowing anyone down and they were all ready for a busy week.