Animals – Robot Claw

A New Wildlife Camera

December 17, 2025

We bought a new wildlife camera. It was very inexpensive since I didn’t want bluetooth or other fancy features, and to be honest the photos aren’t great. But let’s see what’s been visiting our yard anyway!

There’s always deer. Almost every single night they walk through our backyard, never coming onto the patio. The night vision of the camera couldn’t sense too far beyond the edge of the patio, so sometimes the deer are visible just by the glow of their eyes.

The above is a rare daytime sighting of a deer in our yard, and it was just before 9 am on a weekday when both KLS and I were at work. I can’t remember the last time ever witnessing a deer in the yard during the day, so this is very unusual.

The vast majority of photos – over 200! – were of squirrels, especially after we put a feeder out with corn in it. The guy in the photo just above has food grains on his face and in the previous shots was inside the feeder eating the remainder of the corn.

The squirrels were never photographed at night, and the vast majority of photos was just one. Above we see three in the same photo!

The above photo shows what I believe is the wispy end of a squirrel tail as it sat upon the camera!

There were a lot of rabbit photos as well, and all of them were at night. They seemed to be moving around a lot, because most of the time they were in a single photo rather than in a series.

The above was unexpected! Atop the feeder perches a red cardinal, and this was taken at dusk as well. I suppose he was interested in the corn; I wonder if he got any. He was only in this one photo.

Again, there was only photo of this mysterious beast, likely on patrol. I wonder what he was looking for? This was taken late at night.

The fox seems to visit every few days, and there were dozens of photos of him. We’ve seen foxes in our yard before, so this isn’t a surprise. He’s probably after the rabbits!

And I’ll end with this one. It was taken around 7 am and at first glance looks like a fox but on second glance not so much. I have my suspicions as to what type of animal this is. What do you think?

From The Past

March 13, 2025

We spent a few hours at the antique postcard shop last weekend and amongst a haul of ~200 cards I bought this one:

It’s a lovely bird card, probably 40+ years old, and it would have gone into my ‘generic animal’ stash for future Postcrossing use. While I make a concerted effort to not buy used cards, this time I missed this one. Here’s what is written on the back:

A message from Elfriede to Ruth, written July 27 1989. It’s typed and not stamped, and this with the lack of address shows it must have been mailed in an envelope. It’s a nice message, if a little terse, but reading between the lines we see these women were very familiar.

I love the last line, an evocative glimpse of life in Berlin in those days: In Berlin is all the same with the wall and I think so long I live it will not be other.

Only 105 days later, The Wall was torn down. I wonder what Elfriede thought on that day, and whether she wrote a followup to Ruth?

And as for the postscript on the side, a Grünfinken is a greenfinch. Not exactly a canary, but not dissimilar, which explains her choice of card 🙂

Shinagawa

June 13, 2023

I awoke ruined and a shell of my former self. I suspected a ‘light activity’ was needed, and when I stepped out to get some breakfast the incredibly humidity only affirmed this suspicion. So I went to see some fish!

I visited Maxell Aqua Park in Shinagawa, a district of Tokyo about a half hour south of my hotel. This (not really an?) aquarium has various marine animals on display but is mostly known for its dolphin show. Specific to my situation today, it was entirely indoors and the air conditioning was wonderful!

The usual types of fish and other sea life was to be seen, and most of the displays were creative and clean. They had a wonderful jellyfish section as well as a sort of pseudo amazon environment which had capybara and the biggest arowana I’ve ever seen (bigger than me)!

Unfortunately… some of the enclosures left a lot to be desired. As an entirely indoor facility the question arises whether these animals (such as the capybaras or seal) ever see sunlight, much less plants, and my enjoyment in seeing them was undoubtedly affected by my wish they were free. It’s a difficult quandary of all zoos: it’s fun to see the animals, but is it fun for them?

The above pic shows a penguin repeatedly trying to hop onto the leg of a cleaner. She (the cleaner) had to hold her arm to stop the penguin but once or twice the little bird got through. I think it thought the employee was its mum? It was endearing to watch, and it was obvious the cleaner was tolerant and careful in her handling of the excitable bird. I read online this park is known for the care it shows for its animals; I just wish the enclosures were more natural.

The main attraction was the dolphin show, which was about 20 minutes long and featured five dolphins of different species (one was gigantic… was it even a dolphin?) doing impressive tricks with their trainers. The auditorium was impressive and could seat over 1000, although half or them would be in the splash zone… and these dolphins were relentless about splashing people!

I greatly enjoyed this show. Once again I was hesitant at first since I’d rather they had the entire ocean as their playground, but as performers they were flawless and they seemed to have fun as they jumped to incredible heights and dazzled the crowd with their antics. Maxell Aqua Park wasn’t the biggest aquarium I’ve ever visited, and it certainly wasn’t the best, but the dolphin show alone made it worthwhile.

Shinawaga isn’t too far away by train from a famous covered shopping street, so after the Aqua Park I headed over to the ‘Palm’ arcade for some lunch. At nearly 600m long, this is a once street converted to a pedestrian arcade and now roofed. There’s loads of shops and restaurants, and many are of the ‘mom and pop’ style, so it’s very different from the usual mall.

It also had a ‘Kura Sushi’, which is the sushi conveyor belt restaurant KLS and I ate at in Kyoto earlier this year. This is the place where you get a chance at a prize from a gacha machine for each five plates you eat, and naturally I wanted to try again to win a prize.

Long story short: I didn’t win and walked out stuffed with shrimp tempura sushi! It was fantastically delicious (and very inexpensive) but I still don’t know what’s in the capsules if you win a prize!

It was a low impact but fun day (and I didn’t mention the post-dinner Akiba shopping). I successfully recharged while dodging the heat and humidity, and I’m all set to go go go again tomorrow 🙂