Wildbirds gallery - Hakuba Pension Hayaokidori Nagano Japan

Wild birds gallery

Wild bird gallery

A kogara comes to the food box

with mirror and watches the mirror,12cm in length

A titmouse tries to bring a piece of peanut from a food box,14cm in length.

Higara. You can find a few of feathers look like a crown on the top of the head. Higara is about 10cm in length, the smallest race of birds in Japan as same as kikuitadaki.She looks angry because though she has came to eat foods, but she can find nothing near by.

Kogera(left) and higara(right). Kogera is the smallest woodpecker 15cm in length. I hear that they are called "Japanese pigmy woodpecker" in English, aren't they? They sing like "ghi- ghi-". They behave with titmouse especially in winter. Woodpeckers prefer butter or suet to peanuts or walnuts and they shyly hide themselves to the opposite side of the track when we walk to them. But in case of hiding to the opposite side of the thin track, we can see the part of their bodies though they may try to hide themselves perfectly.

Enaga, about 14cm in length. They have long tails that are half length of themselves. They always look for foods with a little members. As they don't have long bills like titmice or woodpeckers, it seems difficult to eat peanuts and go to butter or walnuts. Moreover they cleverly hang down from walnuts as the photograph left. Besides they can hang down by each two legs from another branches.

As higara is the smallest of the titmouse group, they are pushed away by other races. But they often fight themselves or with kogara. They eat foods without affair keeping safety distance about 1meter from us even while we put foods in feeder or branches. Such distances from us seem to be in proportion to their size of body. Small birds do not escape when we approach, larger birds like Aogera do escape when we approach 5meters to them. Higara loves walnuts and never be interested in peanuts while they can get walnuts.

A kogara is nervous about herself on the mirror.

A titmouse(left) and a kogara(center).The titmouse have a long black line from the neck to the abdominal region.The kogara have a short and light black line from the neck.The similar race higara have no line from the neck.

Gojukara 14cm in length. They are the only race of birds can come down on the track of the tree with their heads to the earth. We wonder why they can do such a behavior. So,it is difficult for us to see them to sit on the branch like this. For this custom, they prefer foods in the food box without roof that they can find easily on the top of the track to the peanuts and the walnuts bind of the branches.

Aogera. One kind of woodpecker,about 29cm in length. They have dark-green olive color on their back. Their sing sound like "ke- ke-" or "fi- fi-" to us. It's a little loudly. They like butter and suet and we sometimes see them to fight for foods. Then, other little birds keep their distance not to be injured.

Yamagara,14cm in length. Yamagara have same length as titmouse but they seem larger than titmouse 'cause they have good bodies. Other races of titmice sing like "tpi! tpi!" or "chipi! chipi!" but yamagara sing like "je-! je-! je-!". The sound is big and thick. So we can realize what kind of bird comes our garden when we hear the sound. They are good at breaking a nutshell to pick up contents. So when we bind peanuts with nutshell to the branches, yamagara try to break nutshell. I hear that yamagara lives only in Far East.

Sparrow everyone knows. They seldom appeared because they might prefer develop surroundings to forests. But after our offering foods,they also have gotten to visit our garden. They live strongly against the surroundings with snow. Birds of titmice eat foods bound by strings pulling up by their beaks,sparrows seem to have no custom to do. They try to attack foods with stretching their bodies, but can not eat well as if it is beating the air. Nevertheless they do not approach to the feeder. They very often put themselves below the titmice waiting to get foods which titmice drop.