Charr again

DNA study of Gogi just started. We need lots more samples. Popular streams are not very important. I have to go to the stream that people don't like for certain reasons like it is in the bear country, dark and weird, too bushy to fish comfortably, or something like that.

I tried a small stream running just below an abandoned house.


Sometimes, or actually quite often, you have to go over lots of sand-trap dams like this. It's tiring. But usually there are some good gogi in such a pool below a dam.

English Bible camp

We had the English Bible camp again. It was started by Carmen and Jennifer and almost became our tradition. As a part of the camp we had a joint worship service of Tokuyama and Hofu churches. Carmen came from Korea and Charlene also came from Australia. Morris, last year's guest speaker, joined us with some of his friends in Hiroshima and Iwakuni. It became really an international gathering.

Although it was raining, after lunch we enjoyed nature walk with a specialist, Mr. Sasao. He is an experienced birder, but knows well about other things in nature also. He is showing us wild roses.

Kids enjoy sweet wild berries.

Supper was curry & rice cooked outdoor. Making fire with woods was fun. Cooking rice is difficult and usually some of the groups end up with half-cooked or burned rice. But our instructor was so good and kind all groups succeeded and enjoyed the meal.

Naphi cooking special Indian curry.

to be continued...

Bagful of cherries

College cafeteria. It' still 11:30 in the morning, so it's not crowded yet.





My students. They are teaching assistants of my lab class, too. We have early lunch and prepare for the first class in the afternoon.

From the window of the cafeteria, you can see some greenhouses of Faculty of Agriculture that I belong to. And there is a short cherry tree beside one of them. Usually birds come and eat up the fruits, but this year my colleague covered it with a large net.

So, we can enjoy them. Thank you, Ms. Takematsu!

We have a class to teach. We quickly picked some of them and decided to come back later.


They are soft, sweet and really juicy. But they also go bad quickly. I took them home yesterday and expected that Nanae would bake a cherry pie, but since the fruits were so tasty, she insited on eating all of them fresh. Cherry pie...maybe next year.

Beautiful stream

In the last fishing trip with my students last week, while I was fishing one of them was taking pictures. She shot not only fish but also various things in nature. They are beautiful. You may notice and be interested in the different vegetation from your place.

Pikachu-like new character

Nanae's creation inspired by our travel to Colorado last year.

Probably I'm not the only one who thinks that this somehow looks like Pikachu, one of the best people of 1999. Anyway I like it.

His name is "Ovis-kun" according to Nanae, obviously named after the scientific name of the bighorn sheep.

White-spotted charr

We decided to start the DNA study of White-spotted charr (Salvelinus leucomaenis). They are relatives of North American brook trout and lake trout. We have its subspecies S. l. inbrius called "gogi" in our area. Stocking of this sbspecies is not practiced, so virtually all gogi are native. It is also a threatened subspecies since its distribution is limited to the southwestern end of Honshu Island, warmer region for a charr habitat.

This is one of the gogi stream.

Last week I took some of my students to a remote area where gogi inhabit. My method for catching gogi is exclusively fly-fishing. I can't teach other means, so they also tried flyfishing for the first time in their lives.

They struggled but finally caught one fish. I caught around 10 fish. We cut off a small section of a caudal fin and store it in 70% ethanol. Phylogenetic information should be used for gogi conservation. My students wanted to eat them but all the fish were released alive.

My favorite fly, "Ginger & Tippet", which I created this year and really works.

Wildboar of the year, maybe

Last Sunday a hunters group of Toyota Town culled a huge wildboar. It weighed 203 lbs. Probably it is going to be the biggest one of this year. One hunting dog was injured and sent to an animal hospital. I had never seen such a big one in my wild animal research for the last 10 years.

Two girls behind the animal are my students who already dissected a deer and are waiting for the hunters to dissect this one. We take a stomach sample to see what the animal was eating. At this time of a year usually wildboars stomachs are full of bamboo shoots, which must be their favorite food item.

3rd day of camping

May 6th. Last day of our camping.

We had nice morning. A little cool but sunny. Dismantling and drying the wet tents was easy and fun. Nanae is comfortably sunbathing.

Makoto is a joint of the two wheelbarrows. This was handy to carry all the camping stuff back into our car.

After checking out the camping site we went strawberry picking. Matsumoto family, our friends, invited us to their friend's farm.




You can eat the fruits as much as you want. But you have to pay for the ones that you take home.




Noy trying to swallow my strawberries but his mouth wasn't large enough.



I had never eaten such sweet strawberries in my life. Makoto who used to hate strawberries enjoyed the ones of this farm saying, "These are different; really sweet."

2nd day of camping

May 5th.


Wet and cold morning. Breakfast with hot steamed rice was good.



After breakfast Noy & Naphi went into Akiyoshi Cave, the largest cave in Asia.
It took one hour or so till they came out. I was waiting for them watching beautiful wisteria flowers in full bloom. Makoto got excited to find a kind of carabid beetle that feeds on snails. It seems they become active in a humid condition.

Then came back to the camp and quick lunch of ramen noodle.




As soon as we finished lunch, we started preparation of supper since cooking in the dark is not so much fun. Nanae removes a shell from boiled eggs while Makoto fries vegetables.




By the time we finished cooking supper the weather was nice. We went to onsen, or hot springs, and after that enjoyed scenery from the top of the plateau.




Supper was ovo-vegetarian's curry. Japanese style. Not spicy enough for Noy & Naphi. Sorry. But this is not all we ate: we also enjoyed tandoori chicken and tortillas with refried beans and lot more that they brought. They were really good!

1st day of camping

May 4th.

In the first holiday season of a year, so called the Golden Week, we went camping with Noy & Naphi. Destination is Akiyoshi Plateau. Our car was full of load. I can't understand why Nanae had to take the stuffed bears.

Kids are still young but they can help pitching tents.

After pitching tents, what we should do is, of course, having supper. Cooking, eating and sleeping are major activities.

In the camping ground there was a big jungle gym. Kids were excited.

Since I was tired and resting in a tent, Noy & Naphi played with the kids. Thank you.

Weather forcast wasn't very good and we had rain in the evening and throughout the night. But staying in the tent was comfortable.