About eight years ago, the author rediscovered Kyoto for the third time, often entering Arashiyama via the Hankyu Line. After leaving the hospital, he switched to JR and had long stayed away from Nakanoshima Park. Returning at last, he was greeted by flocks of pygmy woodpeckers, long-tailed tits, great tits, and Japanese white-eyes. And then, high in the branches, he encountered a lone dusky thrush—another quiet miracle in Arashiyama.

When I rediscovered Kyoto for the third time about eight years ago, I usually entered Arashiyama from Umeda on the Hankyu Railway.
January 25, 2016.

Once I decide on a particular place, I am the kind of person who goes there exclusively.

When I rediscovered Kyoto for the third time about eight years ago, I almost always entered Arashiyama via the Hankyu Line from Umeda.

By contrast, from the time I left the hospital until recently, I had always entered Arashiyama by JR. For that reason, I had been completely absent from Nakanoshima Park.

The first to welcome me were a flock of Japanese pygmy woodpeckers, long-tailed tits, great tits, and Japanese white-eyes. Even pygmy woodpeckers came closer than they ever do in the Botanical Garden—right to the point where they were almost within arm’s reach. And they stayed there for quite some time. It was truly unfortunate that the sky that day was a dull, lead-colored winter sky.

Today I went again to the place where I first encountered them, but there was not the slightest sign of their presence. The area felt as though it were filled with brown-eared bulbuls, yet I noticed a single bird, different from a bulbul, perched high on a branch.

It was a dusky thrush.

A dusky thrush and a hawfinch—both in Nakanoshima Park of Arashiyama. Kyoto truly is astonishing.

As for the photographs of the kingfisher and the Japanese white-eye mentioned earlier, the friend who has declared that he will one day become the curator of my photography gallery keeps rejecting them, so I shall refrain from publishing them today.