Taking a walk in the evening, I came across three ducks taking a walk along the rice field.
These three ducks live in the pond near my house all year round while many other ducks stay there only from autumn to spring.
They seemed very cute !
I sometimes see some crows near the doghouse in my yard.
At last I saw two crows eating some dog-food that my dog had left in the bowl.
While one crow were eating, another one was waiting.
After the first crow finished eating, the next one began to eat.
It is said that crow is the cleverest of all the birds and seems to cooperate to each other.
These crows also seemed to be clever !
Ducks in the pond
Many ducks came back from the north to the pond called Oike near my house.
Today I found black birds whose name I don't know there.
I've never seen them till today.
I wonder what the name of this bird is !
Black bird
These female three ducks don't fly to the north even in summer but live this pond all year round.
Sleeping ducks
A snail on the snail
It rained yesterday.
It stopped raining for a while in the evening, so I went out for a walk and I could see a faint rainbow for a short while in the east.
In my yard, many snails were crawling on the wall, on the leaves of the trees and so on.
I saw an interesting scene.
These snail are copulating.
I had never seen a scene like this till yesterday morning.
It is said that the sex of snail is male as well as female and they have to copulate to lay their eggs.
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Taking a walk as usual, I could see these tadpoles in the pond where lotus flowers bloom beautifully every year.Though there were many tadpoles in the pond, they went away when I went up to the surface of the water to take pictures.
They are very cute, aren't they ?
Or are they grotesque ?
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A big dragonfly was on the shoulder of my neighbor the other day.She recommended me to take pictures of this dragonfly.
On pressing the shutter button, it flew away somewhere.
Swallows are busy in feeding their baby birds now.
I hear the singing of the birds from early in the morning every day.
Baby birds are waiting their parents carrying food.
Every time they feel their parents bringing some food to the nest, they twitter very lively. 
May these baby birds leave this nest safely without being attacked by snakes or crows ! 
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I hear the sound of cicada these days.I found this cicada on the tree in my yard.
Hearing its sound, I feel much hotter.
I hear he life of cicada under the ground is very long (about seven years) and the life on the ground is very short (about one or two weeks).
So they seem to sing their songs as hard as possible during the hot summer days.
Swallows laid eggs and are feeding them now.
Their baby birds will leave the nest before long.
This is the second trial .
At first they were feeding their baby birds at the two nests.
A snake or a crow attacked the nests on May 23 and all the babies were eaten. 
I was shocked very much because they had grown to leave the nests soon.
This time, they laid five eggs in the nest.
But two of them fell from the nest and I could see three baby birds in it.
July 5
And one more baby bird fell to the ground and there were two birds then.
July 15
They will be able to fly in the air and leave the nest before long .
July 17
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It's so warm this winter that I sometimes see snakes crawling in my yard.
Yesterday we saw one in front of my porch and today I saw another one at the backyard of my house.
This is the snake I saw today.
What has become of snakes and bears that hibernate in usual winter.
Global warming may be one of the causes of phenomena like this.
Each of us should think what we can do to stop this global warming and do something that we can. 
I happened to see an an eighty-six year old man I know well while walking the other day.
He keeps lots of honey bees in his vegetable field and was preparing the bees to pass the winter then.
He opened the box to show me the nests of honeybees.
Lots of bees were flying and sometimes stung his hands and face in spite of wearing a hat with a net.
But it's all right for him as he is used to be stung.
It was the first time I saw the nest of honeybees.
Honey seemed to be delicious ! 
I saw a mantis on this herb.Its color of light green is so nice!
There were friendly frogs on the pipe.Please put your mouse on the picture !
Swallows laid their eggs in the nest of two places this year too.
One is on the ceiling of the entrance hall and the other is on the ceiling of the storehouse.
I saw three baby swallows in one nest today.
They cry loudly when their parents bring food to the nest.
Now they are very cute!
And parents swallows are making another nest next to the old one.
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