My husband and I visited Osaka Museum of Natural History last Nov. 14 for the Osaka Bird Festival 2015.
The Festival boards greete us at the entrance of
Osaka Museum of Natural History.
We had to leave our place at 6:30 a.m. to arrive at the nearest station before 7:00 a.m. We took a local train to Oshio Station to transfer to a super express to Osaka. Then we took a subway to Nagai Station. Finally, we arrived at Osaka Museum of Natural History at 9:30 a.m.
The heart-shaped bell was the symbol of this park.
Roses were still in full bloom at the middle of November.
We had been planning to participate in the one-hour birdwatching event one month earlier.
It sounded attractive because one of the famous photographers who has been popular among Japanese birdwatchers over the past 30 years joined the event as a lecturer. He visited the event all the way from Tokyo.
Mr. Kanouchi, the famous photographer among Japanese bird watching fans
Mr. Takuya Kanouhi gave a lecture where to find wildbirds in the park. It started at 10:30 a.m. and ended at 11:30 a.m. The event staff members expected 20 participants only. However there seemed to be more than 100 participants. There were too many participants to hear the lecturer's voice. I was surprised that many enthusiastic fans, like us, came to join the event despite the weather forecast of heavy rain and thunder storm.
If he used a speaker like a bullhorn, wildbirds would be astonished and flown away from us. Luckily, he was accompanied by an apprentice who was good at what birds can be seen during the tour. I was trying to be near to his apprentice so that I could learn something from him.
Mr. Kanouchi has a website titled "the enjoyment of watching wild birds" with a subtitle of "for fullfillment of retirement life"
My husband spoke to Mr. Kanouchi after the tour for almost 30 minutes after the tour.
Mr. Kanouchi was born in 1946 and my husband was in1953.
In the afternoon, Mr. Kanouchi gave a lecture of how to take good wildbirds picture in the auditorium. We stood in a queue for about 30 minutes. The lecture started at 12:30 noon and ended at 2:00 p.m.
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After the lecture, we went to the museum to see various events. There were approx. 50 nature and wildbird related groups joined the event. Each of them had their own booth to show their studies. I addition, some of them handed us their pamplets.
My husband enjoyed coloring at a booth.
I was very impressed by one of the nature groups which showed their accessories in their booth. An elderly lady who seemed to be in her 70s spoke to me if I would like to make an accssory for myself as a sourvenir.
She said that they picked up shells in Osaka bay, and arranged sets of accessories for the event. She added "Even in urban areas like Osaka, shells can grow bigger."
They were collecting their visitors' signatures for the petition of conserving the nature in Osaka. By signing it, we were given a set of accessory as an exchange.
The accessory is a set of wooden board, real shell for the face, felt paper for the ears, white stickers for the eyes, red stickers for the mouth, and a green string. She showed me their examples.
I put on the stickers and drew the eyes and the mouth.
I chose a smaller shell.
It looked like Kumamon. I liked it.
We left the place at 4:00 p.m. and took trains to get home after 7:00 p.m. We spent 6 hours on trains, however it was very interesting and worth visiting.
I bought some books written by Mr. Kanouchi more than 10 years ago. They were still in my book shelves and I read them sometimes. However, I never had a chance to see him until this event. The 90-minute lecture was summarized his experiences of keen birdwatcher over the 30 years.
I started birdwatching 15 years ago, and what I have experienced was he talked about during the lecture. What I find interesting from birdwatching is similar to him. His knowledge was much deeper than mine though.
My husband bought Mr. Kanouchi's book titled "How to take wildbird's pictures" at a booth.
Then, my husband asked for his autograph personally.
My husband was exhausted. This picture was taken before 4:00 p.m. when we were just leaving the museum.
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