Institute for Nature Study, Meguro

I found myself in Meguro a couple of weeks ago, and along the way decided to stop by the Institute for Nature Study as I heard it was a good birding spot. Looking at its splotch of green on Google Maps I’d envisioned some sort of small park, but it’s actually more like a dense, overgrown jungle. Which I assume must be pretty good for nature studying. Quite naively I thought I might spot a bunch of cool birds like I did when I visited Shinjuku Gyoen earlier in the year, but alas it was very hard to spot anything at all. The Institute has a walking track that you can spend about an hour walking through. You can definitely hear plenty of birds, but spotting them is another matter. Probably a brown-eared bulbul The first bird I spotted was a brown-eared bulbul screeching its head off, plus there were some mallards out on a small pond. There were many large-billed crows making themselves known in the trees overhead as well. Really, all I needed was a regular pigeon to round out this “most…