Wednesday, August 26, 2009

The beetle not The Beatles

Today, as I walked out of my apartment, I saw this guy or gal sitting on the moss next to the tree in the parking lot of my apartment complex. I couldn't resist taking its picture.

Since I live in Tokyo, Japan, I've noticed the lack of wildlife that exists here. It's almost creepy to see nothing but people. There are no lizards, no snakes, no interesting birds, no ducks in ponds, no wild turkeys, no coyotes, no foxes, no raccoons, no squirrels, no prairie dogs, no wild alligators, no bunny rabbits, no anything. Since I'm a Texan, through and through, it's hard for me to live in a place where nothing exists but people. It's almost like a bad episode of the Twilight Zone. It's eerily quiet here, with the exception of car horns and diesel engines blaring. There are no wildlife sounds.

The only creatures that do exist are pigeons, crows, ants, giant cockroaches, and the occasional beetle or praying mantis. And this really bothers me!

So, when I see a live creature moseying around, I feel compelled to capture it on my camera. It might be another year before I see a live creature again!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You think Tokyo lacks animals? You should live in Northern Japan in the 1st or 2nd (not sure which) most rural prefecture in the country. I live in a valley between two mountain ranges with a river running through it. Here, there are nooooo animals except crows, a few sparrow looking birds, about 6 ducks, 2 or 3 swans (in another town 30 minutes away), about 5 annoying loud birds (in the other town), a couple of dragon flies (I've seen 2 in 1 year), 2 butterflies, a few crickets (I've heard them, but never seen them.), some bigggg spiders (numbers in the 100s), 1 frog, 2 hawks (different town), and 2 roach like bugs. According to local urban myth, the park next to my school has one (yes, only one) squirrel, but I have never seen him/her. During an entire day spent on a nearby mountain cutting trees for a school project, all I saw were mosquitoes and 1 slug. There were no birds!

Sister

Anonymous said...

Hell we got more critters than that in my back yard !!