Otto's blog

Challenge!

Apr

15

This a tree near a friend`s house. What is interesting about it? Can you guess...?

UPDATE:

Answers are in comments!

#動物 #園芸 #花

Not too far from Waikiki Beach is a place called Hanauma Bay. It`s an excellent place to go snorkelling - you can see all kinds of colourful tropical fish, and coral too. I had a great time taking photos of them with my underwater camera.

The beach is very scenic, isn`t it? So it has appeared in various TV shows and movies, such as `Blue Hawaii` in 1961, featuring Elvis Presley. I`ll look for it next time I`m at the DVD rental store!

#アウトドア #動物 #旅行

Fuji Finepix Underwater Photo

Sep

4

I bought my Fuji Finepix XP camera a couple of years ago. I use it as a regular day-to-day camera, but it`s waterproof, so I can also use it underwater. I took the above photo when I went snorkelling at Mihama beach during Obon holidays. As you can see, the water was quite clear, but even when the water is clear, it`s pretty tricky (difficult) to take underwater pictures - the fish move, the water moves, you move, and you have to come up for air all the time! It`s kind of frustrating, but also fun.

#アウトドア #動物

Inuyama Daycamp

Jul

26

On Sunday Teragoya had a daycamp for kids in the mountains of Inuyama. The kids were really interested in finding & catching animals. You can see some of the animals above, in the photos.

The kids had a great time & so did the teachers. It was a fun day, & we were lucky that it didn`t start raining until we were about to leave.

#アウトドア #動物

Medaka News Update

Sep

1

Besides things like bbqs, streams, parks & restaurants, Kawashima Water Eco Park also has a building called the `Aqua Restoration Training Center`. Inside, there are displays, videos, books etc. about Japanese rivers and their ecosystems. I found it very interesting.

Anyway, at home I noticed that most of my medaka release eggs, which become babies. However, a few of my fish give birth to LIVING babies. Now I know why! The volunteer a the A.R.T.C. explained that the ones which have eggs are Japanese medaka, but the other ones are from North America. They were introduced to Japan in the 1950`s. The American ones are stronger than the Japanese ones, so in fact, now in Kyushu there are only American `kadayashi` - no Japanese medaka!

Occasionally I release medaka back into the creek near my house, but the volunteer told me not to release the American ones. Haha - I have American prisoners - maybe Rambo will visit me!

Anyway, the above picture, which I found on the internet, shows the difference.

#動物 #趣味

One Man`s Trash #7

Aug

23

I know fish aren`t trash, but ones like Medaka (`killifish` in English) are free to collect if you want to. I keep some in plastic plant boxes and fish tanks (suiso) at home and in a fish tank in my classroom too. I caught them in a creek near my house.

Usually wild medaka are brown, but occasionally they are white, and last week I caught a rare orange one for the first time. Cool!

Maybe I have an invisible one too, but I`m not sure.

I hope the orange one will have orange babies. Then, when I have lots of orange medaka, I`ll sell them and become rich and buy a 1969 Ford Mustang.

#動物 #趣味