The music used in this film is Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92, performed by the NHK Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Tugan Sokhiev at the “NHK Symphony Orchestra Orchard Subscription Concerts 2025/2026, No. 135,” held in the Main Hall of Yokohama Minato Mirai Hall on Sunday, January 11, 2026, beginning at 3:30 p.m. Japan Standard Time.
This concert was a historic triumph of musical performance.
Accompanied by that performance, I present the wild birds and butterflies I encountered at Kyoto Botanical Gardens, and my day of sheer joy.
October 31, 2026. Clear skies.
For the first time in a while, I entered Kyoto Botanical Gardens before noon.
My close friend, who accompanied me, loves butterflies, wild birds, and herons just as much as I do…so much so that my friend came up with the exquisite nickname “None of My Concern” for herons.
“It’s getting colder, so I suppose there won’t be any butterflies left…”
“No, the skies are clear today, so a swallowtail will definitely appear…”
From the moment I entered, the botanical gardens lived up to their reputation.
Taking one instantaneous shot after another, I made my way to the area around the pond where kingfishers live.
When I headed toward a spot where several wild birds had flown, a lady coming from the opposite direction with binoculars said, “They’re bramblings…”
Well, what a delight—as my readers know, bramblings are among my favorite wild birds.
Several years ago, they flew from a tree on the boundary with the neighboring prefectural university onto the enormous blooms of sunflowers.
That was my first encounter with them.
Ever since, they and I have been close friends.
It happened that year, when they were about to migrate back.
As I waited for a kingfisher to appear in front of the gazebo by the pond mentioned above, a great flock of them appeared on a thick branch of a tree right in front of me.
A lady beside me with a camera exclaimed, “Wow, incredible, I’ve never seen anything like this…” and fired off one shot after another.
They really appeared right under my nose, as though vying with one another.
Without a doubt, they had been watching me as I photographed them appearing on the sunflowers every day.
When they were on the sunflowers, we truly gazed at one another for a very long time.
They had been watching this every day from high up in the large tree.
My love for them had, without a doubt, reached them.
That was how devotedly, day after day, I photographed them appearing alone on a sunflower.
What is more, this was the time when I was giving off my wild-bird-loving pheromones at their maximum intensity.
That is why, as I have already written, flocks of wild birds appeared wherever I went in Kyoto.
I was convinced that, on that occasion, they had unquestionably come to say goodbye to me.
They really were right under my nose.
Every one of them was looking at me.
I felt something well up in my heart.
This is surely one of life’s greatest joys, I thought.
What a fortunate day this was.
Today is Saturday.
Volks, our usual lunch spot, gets crowded.
So I asked my close friend to go ahead and secure seats.
It was then.
A very large bird appeared above my camera.
It was a grey heron.
It was the first such occurrence in more than twenty years of photography.
Amazingly, this grey heron walked along the path as though guiding me.
I kept photographing it.
How happy I was, I thought.
After that time had passed, a call came to say that seats had been secured.
Just then, a swallowtail appeared.
It was right under my nose, and I kept pressing the shutter as though possessed, so enthralled that I could have continued photographing it all day.
At such times, they always fly very close to me now and then, too.
I reach out my hand.
I must have taken hundreds of photographs of her alone…so my initial total easily exceeded 500!
My beloved camera these days is the α1…without a doubt, the finest camera in the world.
These days, because I dislike carrying heavy equipment, I use only a lightweight genuine SONY lens for telephoto photography.
And so, until just a little while ago, I was cropping and deleting hundreds of photographs.
I further refined my selection of photographs and brought them together in a film lasting 16 minutes and 36 seconds.
From the series released by the NHK Symphony Orchestra, I use Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, performed by the NHK Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Tugan Sokhiev.
It would be no exaggeration to say that what I experienced today was akin to “madness” or “ecstasy.”
Surely this is fitting music for a day when I kept pressing the shutter as though possessed by these creatures I love.
Please note that I have also cut the music at 16 minutes and 36 seconds to coincide with the end of the film.
For these 16 minutes and 36 seconds, please watch with the feeling that you are attending a concert by the NHK Symphony Orchestra, one of the world’s foremost orchestras.