Little Visitor to my Backyard
by Toshiaki Nishi
(Wakayama, Japan)
At the back of my house is a tiny backyard. Every year in early winter we used to have a little visitor to this yard, a butcherbird.
When she came, she perched on top of the fence that surrounds the yard for a long time, gazing steadily on the yard. In the meantime she didn't move an inch as if thinking over something. When she found something like an earthworm, she suddenly flew into a dive aiming at the victim and flew away.
Every time she visited this yard, I became a captive to this series of movements of hers and watched her performance behind the curtain. But she doesn't come this winter and I miss her very much.
A small low hill behind my house was leveled into a flat ground and now the ground is used by the driving school. Many birds and insects which used to inhabit the hill were driven out of their home and I have no idea at all where they have gone.
This is a case of environmental destruction that took place in my immediate circle.
