Some Ruffled Feathers in Mito

The guidebooks say Kairakuen is fifteen minutes by bus or a thirty-minute walk from the Mito train station. What the guidebooks fail to mention is that most of that walk is along the scenic shore of Lake Senba.  Getting there was half the fun.  It didn't feel like thirty minutes.  It felt like we were there already.

There were a remarkable number of swans floating on Lake Senba, and most of those swans were black.

Swan babies are called chicks (I looked it up). Your guess is as good as mine as to whether the three fuzzy creatures pictured above are chicks, ducklings, or goslings.

Birdman was feeding a few hundred pigeons and a few swans when he kindly allowed me to take his picture. The tiny squeal of delight that burst from my mouth when I spotted a pigeon diving for Birdman's shoulder apparently translates to "Fire Drill!" in pigeonspeak. A few hundred pigeons took to the air and vanished in an instant. It will be a cold day in Mito, I suspect, before Birdman again allows a gaijin to take his picture.

Of interest, those three swans were totally impervious to my squeal of delight. Perhaps they are deaf.

The swan boats were more cooperative subjects than those pigeons. This would be a nice place to visit in the summer.