Kanatake meeting, April 17th

A group of people with various interests gathered and spent 3 hours at Kanatake no sato, walking around while looking for birds, flowers, insects etc. This is just a small summary

If all ladybird beetles, テント虫 would come out on the same day of the year it would be on this day. They were everywhere, in various stages of their life cycle. You would not know they were all the same insect if there hadn't been anybody to explain.

The middle stage is called sanagi in Japanese サナギ

Somebody got very excited about these black less than a mm creatures that were gathered (deposited?) on the end of a stalk. She called them tsuchi hammyo, ツチハンミョウ or Blister Beetles. 

Blister beetles are beetles of the family Meloidae, so called for their defensive secretion of a blistering agent, cantharidin. About 7,500 species are known worldwide. Many are conspicuous and some are aposematically colored, announcing their toxicity to would-be predators.Wikipedia

I myself was happy to see the first dragonfly of the year. ニホンカワトンボ, Japanese Kawatombo

And some of the common butterflies, ミヤマカラスアゲハ, Alpine black swallowtail

Benishijime, ベニシジメ, Small copper

Another Shijimi, but not blue.   ??? 

Kurokonomacho, クロコノマチョウ, Dark evening brown. (I saw it at noon :-)

Everybody has their own interest. Some like snails. Tsushima kemaimai, ツシマケマイマイ, Aegista trochula

Or fungi. 

And frogs of course! アマガエル, Japanese tree frog

We stopped to look at a beehive (or box, what is it called?) that was full of Japanese honey bees, ニホンミツバチ

I came back another day to take the time to capture a bee bringing in the pollen, as you can see. It's that yellow stuff on it's legs. (And it makes you sneeze)　花粉, kafun

Last but not least some of the wild flowers

There are so many kinds of wild violets in Japan. Somebody told me around 70! Impossible to know them all. This wild violet is Nyoisumire,  ニョイスミレ. Viola verecunda

レンゲ, Chinese milkvetch. In May we can see big fields of these purple flowers. They are planted to add nutrition to the soil like a kind of manure. The insect is a Kumabachi, クマバチ, Carpenter bee.

The common name "carpenter bee" derives from their nesting behaviour; nearly all species burrow into hard plant material such as dead wood or bamboo. Wikipedia

Below:  Murasaki keman, ムラサキケマン, Incised fumewort on the left

Matsuba unlan,マツバウンラン, Blue toadflex on the right

Kiku mugura, キクムグラ

Ooinu fuguri, オオイヌフグリ, Persian speedwell

Fuderindo, フデリンドウ a Japanese Gentian

In the bird department the Barn Swallows, ツバメ were the most interesting, gathering nesting materials and building their nest right in front of us.

It was a pleasant meeting with knowledgeable people who added information and stories and who made these wonders of nature the more interesting for me.