Grey-faced Buzzard

As birds started singing from dawn, Swallows and Grey-faced buzzards (Sashibaサシバ) are coming back from their wintering grounds in the south. It's SPRING! 

These buzzards are amphibian & reptile hunters and this lovely lady (I think it's SHE) was perching above a paddy field full of frog calls. Hope she will find her mate soon.(or she possibly has!) 

Okusa Paddy Fields (大草谷津田いきものの里)

Okusa Yatsuda Ikimono-no-sato is kind of a nature/culture reserve, manually managed organic paddy fields only 4 miles away from the centre of Chiba City. 

A totally different world from the city centre! 

Great egrets (Daisagiダイサギ) were in their gorgeous breeding plumage.

Japanese brown frogs (Nihon-akagaeruニホンアカガエル) were croaking and their tadpoles were swimming everywhere, which means the fields are a huge smorgasbord for those egrets! 

You can hear the volume of the frogs' calls! 

Another bird which would appreciate the fields full of amphibians is a Grey-faced buzzard (Sashibaサシバ). 

The buzzards are migratory and she must have arrived here to breed quite recently. She got here at the right moment for a free buffet! 

Away from the frogs, two hwameis were having a singing competition.

The Chinese hwamei (Gabichoガビチョウ) is recorded as being imported from China for their beautiful songs as early as in the 18th century but hadn't been recognised in the wild until the 1980s. Since then for a while, they were found only in localised areas. Now they seem to have sped up spreading far and wide and it's not so difficult to see/hear them in Chiba. 

Okusa is not very large but is full of signs of wildlife.