Old Imperial Palace Garden

 A visit to one of my favorite places in Tokyo was the perfect way to spend a lovely winter day. The brilliant January sun cast the landscape into a playground of light and shadow.
We visited the mysterious land of the Bald Cypress air roots, and meandered over the bridges and waterways of the Japanese garden, making our way to the Taiwan-style pavilion overlooking one of the ponds.

Birds spotted included the ubiquitous and notoriously grand Mallard, (refer to Not as the Crow Flies for further details on Mallards and the consequences of forgetting to mention them), the friendly Wagtail, the enigmatic and "slightly spooky but really cool" (as my friend put it) Jungle Crow, and one Little Grebe, with its "powder puff tail". The signs posted around the pond are less poetic about the Little Grebe, simply stating that it has no tail feathers. The photo I took is so poor that a link to Wikipedia is included so you can actually see what it looks like.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Grebe