On the second day of the interview, I was not able to take as many pictures as I would have liked, even though I was on board the brown bear boat cruise in the morning.
(Of course, I was excited to see the bear).
And on the third day of coverage, unfortunately, the weather was so rainy that we had to give up shooting.
Then came the long-awaited fourth day of coverage.
Today, in order to experience the forest of Shiretoko, a World Natural Heritage site, and to look for good subjects, we visited a walking trail in the forest in Shiretoko National Pa
The entrance above is just 1 meter across the road from the Shiretoko Nature Center.
During the tourist season, from July to October, for example, be careful when crossing the roadway, as there is a lot of car traffic, not just rental cars.
For detailed walking routes, please refer to the links below, and you should also gather information at the center and take bear measures.
After carefully passing through the entrance and a cluster of red spruce trees, you will again come to the intersection with Route 334.
This is another crossing point with heavy traffic, but the curves make visibility poor, so it is necessary to listen carefully to the sound and cross the road.
After crossing this road, the road becomes off-road again.
From the forest entrance, I passed by a pioneer hut, and only a few dozen meters further in, all I heard was an annoying silence and the faintest sign of an animal.
I was certain that I, a human being, was a foreigner in the forest.
The place where we are walking now is the dwelling place of the black giant we saw from the boat the other day.
I am only a visitor. I walked slowly, listening carefully to the sounds around me so as not to startle it by suddenly meeting it.
After walking a few hundred meters down the path and completely out of sight of the forest entrance, the sound was heard.
It was clearly not the sound of swaying grass and trees.
I pulled out the safety pin from the anti-bear sprayer slung over my left shoulder and slowly turned around.
But the huge black body was not there. But the sound was still being emitted.
I stood there for a while, alternating between silence and not-so-silence, my eyes straining to see.
As I did so, my eyes caught sight of a moving object.
･･･
There he was, a little chipmunk.
It was a squirrel that came very close to us, even though it was wild.
I tried to get a close-up shot of him, but as soon as I tried to approach him, he walked away.
Showing his tail like a high-end neck warmer, he ran over there.
Hoping for a reunion, I continue on into the backcountry again.
Then, after walking another few hundred meters, I hear another sound from behind me.
(Why do I hear sounds behind me every time?)
Is it a bear this time? But when I turned around, there he was.
Your walking sound is louder than you think. Is that you the squirrel I just saw?
Just as I regained my composure and was about to go further into the forest, I heard an explosion from further in the forest.
Probably, it was the sound of a bear that had come down to the human village and was being driven deeper into the forest.
We decided to retreat for the day because the bear might come this way.
