Shigematsu Yoshiteru (1930-2025)

Last week we said goodbye to my wife's father. It was a simple ceremony. Along with the usual rites, my wife spoke briefly about his very active life in the community in which he lived for nearly all of his 94+ years. The flowers were beautiful. 

Among the relatives who attended the funeral, was a woman who brought along an old photograph of him at about the age of 15, just after the end of the Pacific War. The little girl he is carrying in the photo (above) is the woman who brought the photo. Despite my being a foreigner and marrying his oldest daughter, he was always good to me and, on visits to the US, he helped us landscape our garden. His specialty was building traditional stone walls. RIP.

Places I'm visiting: Japan September 2025 – Life birds

Back in Tokyo now, and heading home tomorrow. On the way to the airport for my flight from Matsuyama to Tokyo on September 30,  I made a brief stop along the Tateiwa River in the town of Hojo (now absorbed into Matsuyama but I still think of it as a separate town). I lived in Hojo for a year as a teenager. Along the river I spotted an unfamiliar sandpiper. Thanks to adjustments to my camera settings recommended by my new birding acquaintance from Oshima, I was able to get a nice shot of one of the birds in flight. This is a Terek Sandpiper (Xenus cinereus). It's fairly common throughout Asia, but a very rare accidental visitor in California. Another "lifer" for me.

In total, at the end of my trip to Japan this time (which was not a birdwatching trip) I managed to get a total of eight life birds:

*Asian Brown Flycatcher (Kosamebitaki)

*Grey-streaked Flycatcher (Ezobitaki)

*Dark-sided Flycatcher (Samebitaki)

*Red-rumped Swallow (Koshiaka tsubame)

*Japanese Kingfisher (Kawasemi)

*Black-tailed Gull (Umineko)

*Kamchatka Leaf Warbler (Ōmushikui)

*Terek Sandpiper (Sorihashi-shigi)