Hello AI: Merlin, eBird, and new age of bird watching?

 

The standard says winter to early spring is good for birdwatching. Especially in the forest of deciduous trees, leaves are absent during this season, which makes finding birds easier. Silence in winter forest is also helpful to listen chirping of wild birds. Waiting a bit for March, some early birds would start singing to find their mate while leaves are not yet fully opened. So far obvious, right? The next issue is, we often want to identify the bird when we find it in our birdwatching session.

Varied Tit

Not many people are satisfied with only watching / listening the birds. Almost naturally, next question arises. “What is the name of that bird?” This is a human tendency which would make Claude Levi Strauss grin. We start to learn the way to identify birds. I mean remembering characteristic look of species and checking youtube to search for that particular chirping or singing … You know the routine, don’t you? The difficult part is in applying what we’ve learned in the field. When their voice and look are very obvious like crows, we can say that bird is a crow for sure. But more often we start to discuss who’s the owner of this specific voice, or pretty brown feather. When we’re with a connoisseur the discussion could end quickly with a final voice from that person. Otherwise, we often conclude “Er … we don’t know.” Frustration.

My field guide to the birds, published by Wild Bird Society.
For Japanese birds, it covers more or less all.

So, if there is some help from AI or something, it is welcome. Some of you may know, there are several such apps that can connect its database to the photo or the sound from the microphone and tell us the name of the owner. The point is to learn how to use it. The other day in January, rangers of Wild Bird Society of Japan who station in Yokohama Nature Sanctuary held a weekend session to tell us exactly that. It was fun!

Er, it’s not bird’s nest, but a nest for Pallas’s Squirrel
 in Yokohama Nature Sanctuary.

By the way, the damage done by
the squirrels for Nature Sanctuary is serious.
 This tree is denuded by the animal
which ate the bark for their winter meal.
Surely, the tree will die soon.

Wild Bird Society of Japan collaborates with Cornnell Lab of Ornithology to promote the usage of eBird and Merlin to improve the database and ultimately promote the protection of avian species which globally observes alarming speed of extinction. To do anything, the first step is to learn the conditions of the thing, right? Having said that, the rangers said “The recognition of these apps are still limited in Japan. AI needs lots of exact data as possible. If the data eBird can accumulate is not big enough, the accuracy of Merlin’s search is not much either. Please join our global community to improve our data in Japan.” Well, OK. Corollary: the answer AI Merlin gives us is not reliable, but if we can feed in accurate data more, someday, probably soon, Merlin will become useful tool ... Alright. Let’s try. We have to start from somewhere, right?

Birds love such seeds during winter.
So, this spot in Nature Sanctuary could be
 a good place to wait for them to come.
Please be quiet …

And before that, for some of you not familiar with eBird and Merlin, I tell you about them a bit. eBird was a global database for birds whose custodian is Cornell Lab. I guess it was first created for professional researchers but quickly they decided to receive info from amateurs to accumulate enough data. So, it accepts reports of avians from anybody who accesses their reporting system and the pros in Cornell Lab check if the report has a certain level of accuracy. I guess if they received an input saying a person observed an Emperor Penguin in Waikiki Beach, the Lab sheds such report. Due to this history eBird is still more PC friendly for reporting than mobile phones. As the main usage of the database is for scientific research, I guess these characteristics of eBird with PC remain for quite some time. That’s that.

HP of eBird, Japanese version.
The detailed way to use them can be find in their HP.

And Merlin. This is an app suitable for mobile phones. You go to Apple Store or Google Play and download Merlin. Its usage is in the field. When you open the app, it gives you 3 choices for you to decide the identification method you use. The first one is to use question-and-answer type of sequence to have a list of possible candidates for a bird you’ve observed in the field. The second way is to open microphone in Merlin to let the AI analyze the voice of a bird. The third approach is to take a photo of a bird and let Merlin search for the possible candidates from that photo. When the Merlin concludes these analysis, we can send the result to eBird directly.

Merlin’s HP. The usage of it is explained in their HP.

So far, it sounds easy, as long as we are able to use internet. One big caveat in this AI approach for birdwatching is, we need internet to use especially Merlin. Hence, we cannot employ this approach in deep mountains like Yadoriki Water Source Forest where the cellphone coverage is VERY patchy at best. There is more even with internet. It’s due to the learning process of AI. More to it next week.

No internet here.

If you have any questions about Yokohama’s Green Tax and Green Up Plan, please make a contact with

Strategic Planning Division, Green Environment Bureau, City of Yokohama
横浜市みどり環境局戦略企画課

Phone: 045-671-2712
FAX: 045-550-4093 

Email: mk-kikaku@city.yokohama.lg.jp

Snow

 

It’s snowing today in Yokohama.

But, spring is near.

If you have any questions about Yokohama’s Green Tax and Green Up Plan, please make a contact with

Strategic Planning Division, Green Environment Bureau, City of Yokohama
横浜市みどり環境局戦略企画課

Phone: 045-671-2712
FAX: 045-550-4093

Email: mk-kikaku@city.yokohama.lg.jp

I Do Not Want to Inhale: Finding microplastics in Shonan Beach

 

So, one fine January morning, scientists for Kanagawa Environmental Research Center gathered us, the registered ESD instructors, in a beach where Shonan Bellmare soccer team trained themselves during off-season. It was a beautiful day. The beach volleyball players engaged in their daily training routine while neighbors brought their pooches for morning stroll. A scientist instructed us, “First we situate 40cm*40cm codrato on beach.” “Please aim the collection point along the line where tide reached max, then retreated. They leave the debris on sand.” OK.

We can recognize
how far the tide came at this point with debris.
Nearer to the sea, the tidal flow washed
the fragments several times and
the beach became “seemingly” smooth and clean.

40cm*40cm was like this.

“Next, please scoop the sand within the square for about 3cm deep, and filter the contents in the sieves. We use a combination of two sieves. Above is a tool of coarser mesh with 4.74mm2. Join up a finer sieve with 2mm2 mesh below. Microplastic has, by definition, the size of 5mm less in its longest length which is often the diagonal. 4.75mm mesh could let pass a particle of this size. The lower sieve would release smaller bits, which would be defined as nanoplastics. Collecting nanoparticles is totally different issue, so we skip it today.” Sure. Let’s start sand play!

Two-story sieve system

Ready …

Go!

On the line where the tide reached max, there were lots of fragments of wood, bamboo, hard pampas grasses, and garbage of apparently artificial materials. At the point where I collected the sand not many glasses, beer cans or cigarette butts were found. Maybe, that’s good news. We collected large trash from a codrato before start scooping. In the first sieve, there remained relatively large fragments of wood and shells, and we returned them to the sand. The below is where our target remained. We damped them in a (Ahem) plastic Ziploc and brought it to the lab.

The “above” sieve.

The “below.”
They contain the thing of probably more than 5mm in size.
But they could go through 4.75mm mesh.

You may think the selection for the point of codrato would measure the level of plastic contamination higher than the average of the beach. Scientists for the Center thought the same thing and they did exhaustive study for the same beach before. “We tried several points if there is the optimum point where we can collect the microplastics in the most efficient way. Our conclusion is statistically speaking there is not much difference among locations in one beach and the amount of sand scooped. This means microplastics are scattered evenly and widely without difference in depth. Operationally, it’s good news. To think about the level of contamination, it’s VERY serious finding.” Oh yeah.

Today’s catch.

We brought the scooped materials to the lab and sorted the contents into organic things and plastics by hand, er, by tweezers to be exact. In our bag, there was no apparent porcelain and glass bits or steel wires, so the “artificial” debris was all plastics. At a glance neon green or the like of artificial coloring was not found much. So, the first impression was “Nah, problem is not serious.” Not so fast, please. The problem was, the originally white or transparent plastics absorbed or were smeared by some chemicals during their stay in water, and changed their color into similar to organic woods or the like. Deception. So, we have to identify the thing which was

a) Unnaturally geometrical, and/or

b) Looked a bit strange. 

Category b) is somehow easier to understand, isn’t it? We just trust our gut instincts. 😉

“A bit strange” things are apparent, don’t you think?

The particle in a) category was tricky as the beach was full of tiny rocks polished into something round tiny pebbles. As we know their origin was huge volcanic rocks created by tectonic movements, like andesites and tonalites, in Tanzawa. So, even when they are tiny, they keeps their characteristics of volcanic mineral. We patiently separated such pebbles from the “catch.” The plastic particles remained after this check was once the contents of beads cushions or beloved teddy bears. The main body of them was already trashed, but the staffing = plastic beads came out from the sac, drained into the stream, and ended up in the beach. During this process, they were exposed to sea water and uv-light which turned their color from white/transparent to something “organic-kind” brown. When left as such in the beach, they will be broken into smaller bits and become nanoplastics, or smaller. As they are small and light, when the wave splash kicks up them with sea water into the atmosphere, they can float in the air and end up at the bottom of the lung of mammals, humans included. Anyone cancer? Stroke? Heart attack?

The pebbles from Tanzawa, and a shell.
I plan to make them into an accessory with resin.

Another “unnaturally” plastics we’ve find looked briefly like some shell of seeds. They have a shape after the contents inside were squeezed out. Scientists told us, “It’s plastic.” Originally, they were slow-release fertilizer used massively even in commercial farms. Inside was active ingredients that seeped into the soil and one day they became empty. After reaching this stage, they started to be washed into water stream over ground, to the river, then to the sea. “Ideally, farmers side dressing their crops according to the conditions of their product. But aging problem is serious for the ag community in our prefecture. The grandparents do not have the stamina to tend their field regularly. So, they apply fertilizer contained in the plastic sac to skip regular dressing.” i.e. The problems are in forests, like Yadoriki community, and end up with the sea contamination of microplastics. Hmmmmmmmmm.

For the remnants of slow-release fertilizer,
the bit shown by the arrow is
the most easily identified in this pile of microplastics.
But here, there are roughly 10 such plastic husk.
Could you identify them?

We can analyze such debris for its chemical properties.

The result. It’s acetylcellulose.

According to the scientist of the Center, for Kanagawa Prefecture the level of microplastic contamination is apparently higher along the coast of Sagami Bay compared with the beaches to the direction of Tokyo Bay. Kanagawa’s beach facing to Tokyo Bay is almost at the exit of the Bay. Moreover, there are not many rivers pouring in. In contrast, Sagami Bay has several rivers that run down the large human settlements. Scientists surmised if the origin of the contamination is from open Pacific Ocean, there cannot be such huge difference among locale. Their conclusion is the problem in the sea is coming from the rivers passing through the land. Forests are lovers for sea. So they say. But …

Of course, we now cannot do away with the plastics for our life. We understand senior farmers need any help to continue their farming life. But, there must be some way to prevent inhaling nanoplastics that could cause any serious diseases eventually … Difficult. At least, let’s be careful before throwing away the tattered teddy bear with plastic beads …

If you find environmental issues in Kanagawa Prefecture, especially in cities and coastlines, please make contact with

Kanagawa Environmental Research Center

神奈川県環境科学センター
1-3-39 Shinomiya, Hiratsuka City, 254-0014
〒254-0014　平塚市四ノ宮1-3-39
Phone: 0463-24-3311
FAX: 0463-24-3300 

https://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/docs/b4f/index.html

No syringes, But Microplastics: Beach clean 2026 in Shonan Beach

 

It’s depressing thought, but we have to face the reality before proceeding to the future, right? Our ocean is contaminated by plastic garbage. At least in Japan these days, the direct damping of plastics intentionally to sea is becoming rare. Instead, trash on land, like candy wrappers casually thrown away, is swept by rainwater to a stream nearby, then floating down the river to the sea. Speaking “Forest is a lover of the Sea.” Heck. Yeah, it is true ecologically, but the humans around these two passionate lovers don’t care how the couple nurture their love … Nay, humans are caring. Not many people these days in Japan leave the garbage in forest or on road. If you do this, the city officers and sometimes police will come to see you … Still, many non-biodegradable things drift to the ocean.

Seemingly impeccable beach

And as you know, non-biodegradable does not mean a plastic bag keeps its form as a bag forever. UV light and the other many chemical reactions mutilate the mass of plastic into particles. Microplastics are born. Micro or nano, as substance plastics are plastics and do not decompose into a natural cycle. Moreover, they chemically react with the other toxins especially in ocean where salty water and UV light do a good job for creating another toxic material from trash. Worse, as they are tiny, even if they wash up the beach, they are too small to pick up during the standard beach combing. Period. Facing the reality part is over for this post. The next is, what to do?

Too small to identify them here.

Of course, the best way is to stop supplying the “raw material” for microplastics on land. Yeah. We Lovers of Niiharu engage in weekly forest patrol and collect garbage. The common item we find is PET bottles for drinks and candy wrappers. I don’t say ours is fruitless effort, but probably we need more knowing hands to deal with the problem. Why do I think so? Well, there is an apparent change in “trophies” we can have during the beach combing in Shonan Beach.

Niiharu Lovers are patrolling.

About 20 years ago, I helped beach clean to hold the Shonan Open Water Swim Race. At that time Shichiri-ga-hama 七里ガ浜 (; my post for March 9, 2025) had still certain amount of sand beach. We could set up the starting-point for swimmers of 5km race to Katase Higashi-hama 片瀬東浜 in front of Enoshima Island 江の島 (; my post for June 30, 2017). That Friday morning, a day before the race, we collected trash, like pieces of wood came down from Tanzawa Mountains 丹沢, debris of handheld fireworks (they are dangerous for barefoot swimmers), plastic wrappers for sweets and lunch packs, PET bottles, AND old TV, tyres, used syringe needles. We’re astonished to find a corner with needles, tyres, broken TVs, and called the City of Kamakura 鎌倉市 for help. Of course, we lamented the shameful morale of somebody who damped such things there. Now that I look back, it was good old simple days. Nowadays, when we beach clean, it is difficult to find old TV et al. Actually, finding PET bottles for drinks is not so frequent. The large “catch” could be some stray fishing tools probably fishermen gave up somewhere in the waters off. Hurrah for clean beach!? Nope. Instead, we meet sand with particles of strangely vivid pink, neon blue, and plastic green. The beach is covered with microplastics. Collecting these with tongs? You must be joking.

Strange colors here and there.

One sunny day this month, Kanagawa Environmental Research Centre organized a study session on how to scientifically monitor the microplastics contamination in our beach. The idea is simple. We gather plastic particles in a unit quadrant, 40cm*40cm, of sandy beach using trowels and sieves. We then count how many MP we find in that unit, measure a probably representative specimen, then analyze chemical characteristics of it with machines. Just gathering micro plastics is simply fun. These days kids, especially in elementary schools along the Shonan Beach, engage in the activity to experience the problem in their playing ground. Good. Knowing is the first step to solve the problem. We adults are required to think about it more. Let me continue about it next week.

If you find environmental issues in Kanagawa Prefecture, especially in cities and coastlines, please make contact with

Kanagawa Environmental Research Center 神奈川県環境科学センター

1-3-39 Shinomiya, Hiratsuka City, 254-0014
〒254-0014　平塚市四ノ宮1-3-39

Phone: 0463-24-3311
FAX: 0463-24-3300

https://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/docs/b4f/index.html

Whatever Happens, Babies Are Coming: seedlings in dry river beds for winter Tanzawa

It is still at the proposal stage for a possible new project for forests in rural Kanagawa about which I said a bit last week. The theme is to assess the effects from frequent storms et al, probably due to climate change. A sudden torrential rain for a short period of time has become common these days, which could have effects on environment. Landslides and debris flows could often occur to destroy communities downstream. Especially afforested cedars where the network of root system is somehow simple and its forest floor has lesser biodiversity, the new disaster risks many be materializing easily … Such questions are certainly worth looking at. Let us see how the theme evolves in 2026 and beyond. Having said that, mini floods are habitual for rivers running down from Tanzawa Mountains even before the climate change days.

Once it collapsed, it was like this.

There is a theory the name Tanzawa 丹沢 is from classic Korean circa 1AD. According to this story, the name of the place means “many small streams.” Apt. Then, once the storm comes, these not so long but rapid flows frequently change the course. It has created wide riverbeds in deep mountains. The feature is due to the fragile soil of the area thanks to the continuing crash of Philippine, North American and Eurasian Plates. In such wide dry gravel bars, there come pioneer plants, such as Euptelea or cat’s claw, which do not care about the crumbly stone filled soil. These species should be gone once the soil becomes stable and the dominant species for the climate of the area, such as ring-cup oak, will conquer the pioneers. Alas, such transition has not happened in Tanzawa’s riverbeds.

I think this is Japanese hornbeam in winter.
Yeah, it’s another pioneer plant along mountainous streams,
but I think even this one has some limit …

Very wide dry riverbed

Euptelea in bloom

Still, it does not mean we can find only pioneer plants in Tanzawa’s riverbeds. At least baby trees sprout in a gravel-filled space, even if they will be wiped away once a storm comes. From late autumn to early spring when Kanto Region is in a dry season and Tanzawa Mountains are ‘sleeping,’ we can leisurely find variety of seedlings and rosettes there. Thinking whose babies they are is like a treasure hunt in deep mountain. For example, these are the kids I found the other day in Yadoriki stream.

Rosette for Philadelphia fleabane.
It is a naturalized plant from the US.
I noticed there are several such plants of
 foreign origin in the riverbed.
For example, maybe,

Lysimachia? also from the US, and

Sonerila dongnathamensis?
If so, it is from Thailand.

Oriental false hawksbeard. It’s Japanese native.

Plume poppy. ditto

Hydrangea macrophylla. ditto

Stephanandra incisa

Deutzia crenata.
Come to think of it,
they all love forest edge with full-sunshine.
Typical feature of ecotone, maybe …

Trachelospermum asiaticum

I think it is winged spindle.
Though now it is familiar as a garden plant,
we can commonly find it in mountains.
Our ancestors used it for painkiller.
For such usage,
the tree must have been on a stabler soil ...

Japanese Spiraea.
It also loves rocky soil, and is loved by gardeners.

I know they will be crashed by rocky debris tumbling down from the upstream, when the rainy season comes. Still, some baby maples turned their color into vivid red in dry rocks. Hmmmmmmm … this may could be an inspiration for Bonsai art. If you have a chance to visit upstream rivers in Tanzawa, just look down on your feet. Those babies are betting on the chance of their survival in this very harsh condition. Impressive.

Crashed …

Japanese maple baby

If you find environmental issues in Kanagawa Prefecture, please make a contact with

Kanagawa Natural Environment Conservation Center

神奈川県自然環境保全センター

657 Nanasawa, Atsugi City, 243-0121
〒243－0121　厚木市七沢657

Phone: 046-248-0323

You can send an enquiry to them by clicking the bottom line of their homepage at 

http://www.pref.kanagawa.jp/div/1644/