The Blue Heron

While slow time has just started arriving Hokkaido, it's been really quiet here in Kyushu for many weeks now. Birds are not singing, it's been raining everyday, and no migrants to be found. Pretty much enough for me to have not taken any photo since June 13th.

So what I'm doing now is just the same old playing around with my blog. I tried changing my current template to the newly developed ones that blogger has just offered, but I found myself not liking any of those new invention, so I just stick with my simple old one. Apparently, I'm also writing a blog in a new way as you can see here. I put photos and text tightly together and the thumbnails for images are also a little smaller, so they are not as space-consuming as before, especially when it comes to a long entry like travel diaries or photo compilations. And I just learned how to put a "Read more »" option into the post as well.

A little more news to update. Finally, I would have a chance to go birding abroad once again, after my international birding has been paused by the time I came to Japan. So one of my birding colleagues emailed me that there's a very interesting discount for an airline's ticket to Malaysia, where I was so eager in making a re-visit, so I said ok and we'll all be going there next March! My last visit to mainland Malaysia was roughly around 2002 and in 2003 I visited Borneo island. Malaysia is just truly another birders' heaven where lots of tropical birds with incredible colours can be found. This visit will be my second time for the very well-known birding spot Fraser's Hill and my first for the equally famous Taman Negara. Can't wait until 2011 comes!

By the way, here are photos of the juvenile Grey Heron or Aosagi(アオサギ), meaning "blue heron" in Japanese, at Sekino-e. The bird hung around for few days and was quite tame. Though it is not in any ways relating to what I have written here, putting some images makes the post more colourful, isn't it?