The birds are getting active Spring is on its way, as evidenced by an increase in bird activity recently.  I did a somewhat longer than usual run second time out with this new trail camera and got a decent little assortment of birds to show you in this post. Some of the photos are better than others, but I included a few so-so photos as a record to mark the bird variety caught on camera. Nature is for the birds, and for me and you, too! Had a lot of fox and tanuki, as usual. The fox in this location is unusually active in the daytime, so there were lots of snowy fox pics and I saved a ..read more

Hi, so it’s a been a few years since I’ve been actively using my trail cameras, but have decided to get out in the woods and set some up again. I need to get out more and reconnect with nature. My favorite trail cam broke a couple months ago and this is my replacement, a Vikeri E2. I will do a compare/contrast blog post soon of the four cameras I have showing what features I like and don’t like and different problems I’ve had with a few of my cameras. I just went and retrieved this one on my lunch break today. First time using it, and it was only out 4 days or so, but I got a lot of Tanu ..read more

The Buddhist religion came to Japan in the 6th century. The Emperor Tenmu (r. 673–686) was a devout Buddhist who in 675 banned the consumption of animal meat—including cattle, horses, dogs, chickens, and monkeys—launching a policy that continued in some form for nearly 1,200 years. But, most people quite enjoy meat as part of their diet and so secretly defied the ban or tried to devise ways to get around it.  Spend a long time in Japan and you end up learning lots of little trivia. As some point I learned about a couple funny little language tricks the Japanese came up with to get around ..read more

Somebody ate a crusty, old dried mouse off of a sticky trap in my storeroom. I knew there could only be one culprit, a weasel. So, I set up a trail camera and within a couple days I had a couple shots of the guilty party. This weasel probably lives nearby and my storeroom could have been a regular part of its hunting territory. In 5 years of using trail cameras in the woods and on the mountain I’ve only got about 4 or 5 photos at most of weasels, while I’ve been able to get probably several hundred photos of marten. Well, here I am, just having fun and it turned into some self-directed natur ..read more

First real blog post. Not sure how to go about it right now, but won’t take long to get the hang of it, I’m sure. Lots of little ideas for topics for blog posts, but I thought I’d start at the beginning. I was out early on my mountain bike one summer morning and pushing my bike up a little narrow road that cuts through woods I saw a little fox running around looking for food. Thinking back now, I can’t remember if already had a trail camera or was inspired to order one by coming across the fox that morning. The first camera I used was a really cheap, basic one, but I stuck it in a little area ..read more

I’m starting this web site as a way to 1) learn how to make a website as part of my job 2) teach people about some of the animals of Japan and 3) get back into my trail camera/nature study activities. I live in Tottori prefecture, Western Japan at the base of Mount Daisen. The post Trail Camera Japan’s first blog post. appeared first on Trail Camera Japan ..read more