Oct. 24 - Toyooka, Hyogo

My husband and I drove north for more than 2 hours to visit Kouno-tori-no-sato Park (or the Home of the Oriental White Stork) in Toyooka, Hyogo Prefecture last Oct. 24.  We left our place at 7:20 a.m. and arrived at the park at 9:40 a.m.

The highway traffic was almost empty and we enjoyed driving northwards.

It was foggy over there.  The highway ends at Wadayama junction.  We had to drive on local streets.  I felt much colder than the place we live in.

The vertical traffice signal

I noticed that the traffic signal is positioned vertically.  I thought that it would snow much there in winter season.  It may be suitable during that time.   We could not see clearly if the signs were positioned horizontally on a snowy day.

 

For example, the traffic signals in my neighorhood look like these:　　

The horizontal traffic signal

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I noticed there were various tourist-friendly boards:

 

We parked our car in front of the Kouno-tori-no-sato Park which is free of charge. 

There were some souvenior shops beside the park.

 

My husband's backpack (where his camera and lens were packed), his tripod bag (the long one behind), and his sweater.

Even the mailbox was decorated with a white stork! 

A dried specimen of the white stork are displayed in the middle of the lobby.

It seems like a welcome gesture of the center.

You can see how big the bird is.

The man on the right side of the specimen is my husband.
  

The white storks have some rings around their legs. 

The stork in the picture has red ring on its left leg and white one on the right.

The bird in the left wears green and blue rings in its leg. 

 

Each stork has different colored rings so that we can identify every one of them.  This board shows the stork's names, ring colors, and their corresponding dates of birth, and sexes.

For example, J098 which is wearing light green rings, was born in 1991, a male bird.
In the park, there are currently nine birds living here for tourists to see.

If their wings aren't cut, they can fly away.  Some wild white storks are visiting there for 3:00 p.m. feeding time. 

 

We ate lunch at the restaurant in front of the Kouno-tori-no-sato Park.  When we parked before 10:00 a.m., the parking lot was almost empty.  But after lunch we found there were already many cars parked there.

It was a worthwhile visit.  The people we met there were nice.  Senior volunteer staff members gave us a 15-minute presentation free of charge.  They said, "The last white stork died in 1986 which meant the Japanese white storks were completely extinct at that time.  We were very fortunate that the Soviet Union gave us their six birds in 1985.  We started hatching then.  We were successfully able to hatch the first one in 1989 by the help of veterinarians and local people.  We were also successful to help them give birth in wildlife in 2007.  The white storks has numbered up to more than 100 now.  More than 90 of them are flying to some parts of Japan.  The white stork which flew the farthest was South Korea."  

They also asked us to report to them if we ever find some storks, when and where we found them with their ring colors.   They are collecting reports of stork sightings.  

Please visit http://www.stork.u-hyogo.ac.jp/

We didn't have a chance to take pictures of flying birds during the visit.  According to the staff members, wild storks would be flying in the park around the 3:00 p.m. feeding time. 

We really wanted to take pictures of them flying, however, it would be too dark for us to arrive at home.  The driving after dark would be dangerous for us because we are not accostomed to go there.   

I didn't check what's inside of the boxes, but I presume there must be fish for feeding the white storks.