A bird encounter in Tokyo

I had a stroll by the bank of the Sumida River (the biggest river in Tokyo) just around the nightfall. I was walking over the bridge by the old fish market (now turned to a building site) when I stopped to look at the skyline. 

Then I spotted this big gray bird quietly standing still on a concrete slab. If you look carefully at the red markers in the picture, just in the middle of the middle row, you'll see the bird. I think it's a blue heron but could also be a crane, I always mix them up. 

In any case, the bird reminded me something like Japanese wood garvings or ink paintings where they stand motionless before catching their prey. I later saw two of them flying by over the skyline of Tokyo skyscrapers, it was pretty and impressive!

A "goofy" thing is that the water in the picture looks totally smooth. When walking, at one point I realised that there was some commotion and waves. Later I heard that there had been an earthquick around that time. I did't feel anything, but maybe that was it!

The flower that looks like a spout of a watering can

My travels this year have been characterised by the late blossom, there is been something of a "oh, I wish I had come ealier"-feeling. In the Azores, we were getting only a hew of their blue blossom. 

 

So today in Tokyo, I was wondering about the plants that were crowding the pond (Shinobazu pond in Ueno park). The remains of the flower look like a strainer, or a spout, of a watering can, you know the type?

It turns out that they are Lotus Flowers - or what's left of them. All what we saw was a thick mattres of green round leaves, with a diameter of some half a meter (so really big), floating above the surface of the water. 

Impressively, the "strainers of a watering can" were sticking out, sometimes some 50cm above the water. It appears that what looks like a "strainer" is actually a seed head of a lotus, thier pods. That's pretty cool to learn!!

The picture below is how it looks when flowers are in blossom. The pond has apparently been an inspiration for many pieces of art, like the wood garving from 1866 (that's why no highrisers appear in the pic!).