Hobbies And Interests
Japanese Quail
The Japanese quail is also found in Russia, China, Korea and India; and winters in China, southeast Asia and the northwestern coast of Africa. It lives in grassy fields, riverbanks and rice paddies. It looks like the European common quail in that it has mottled feathers over a dark brown base color and a white stripe above the eye. It weighs about 3.17 ounces. The males have a reddish coloring on the breast that the females sometimes lack. Both male and female are around the same size, with wing span of 3.6 to 3.9 inches. In Japan, the quail nests from late May to August, and eggs are laid at around a rate of one a day. The clutch size is eventually five to eight eggs. The chicks are sexually mature after about a month. The Japanese quail eats many kinds of grass seeds as well as insects and small invertebrates.
The Red-Crowned Crane
The red-crowned crane is the second rarest crane in the world. The bird migrates around Russia, China and southeast Asia, but a non-migratory population resides in Hokkaido, Japan. Red-crowned cranes live in deep water marshes with standing dead vegetation, unusual since most of their relatives prefer shallow water. They weigh about 20 lbs., are about 5.25 feet long and have a nearly 8-foot wingspan. They have white bodies with black-tipped wings and have the famous red circle on their heads, which is really exposed skin. Their courtship dance, a series of bows and leaps and head bobbing, is famous; and couples are monogamous. They breed in spring and summer; and the female usually lays two eggs, though only one chick usually survives. The chicks fledge, or get their flight wings, in around 70 days and reach maturity in two or three years.
The Japanese Crested Ibis
The Japanese crested ibis used to live in wetlands; but due to human disturbance, it has moved to the mountains, from 1,640 to 3,280 feet, where it can be seen in rice paddies. It's a small ibis, around 30 inches long and weighing 2 lbs., with a 55 1/2-inch wingspan. It has white, pink tinged feathers and a long, curved black bill with a red tip. The face is red and featherless. The legs, which are red to brown, are short and have webbed toes. The neck has a mane of feathers and a large crest on the nape. During the breeding season, the head and upper body of the bird turn gray. Like the red-crowned crane, the Japanese crested ibis has fairly elaborate courtship behaviors. The bird breeds between March and August, and a clutch size averages about three eggs. Both sexes incubate the eggs for about a month. Japanese crested ibises sometimes flock outside of the breeding season.
The Japanese Grosbeak
The Japanese grosbeak is a 8-inch long migratory finch that lives in the woodlands of Japan. It has a heavy beak for crushing seeds, a gray brown body, a black mask on its face and a white bar on its wings. The Japanese grosbeak builds a shallow cup nest made out of twigs and lined with down in a tree. It breeds in northern Japan and winters in southern Japan.