Dolphins, birds, cats and dogs

This time some scanned animal pics that I shot in the past 5 years on several occasions. The first two pics were shot during a trip that Noriko and I made somewhere at the end of April or beginning of May 2000 to Miyakejima, an island south-east from Tokyo and belonging to the Izu-islands, known for it's vulcano, birdwatching and also dolphinwatching. Short after our visit the vulcano Mount Oyama became active again in July 2000 and by September that year the whole population was evacuated. After a little more than four years of activity and vulcanic emmissions, the population of the islands was allowed to return permanently in February 2005 (!!!).

The actual swimming with the wild dolphins and the dolphinwatching we did from the island Mikurajima, a small nearby island with only 300 residents. This was a very memorable and impressive experience which I won't easily forget. The curiosity of the dolphins, the possibility to get real close and touch them, it was very, very awesome.

The dolphinpics were shot with the Minolta Vectis GX-4

The picture below is a pic from Ranchan the Shih Tzu dog of my mother in law in Japan. Ranchan unfortunately passed away almost two and a half year ago. She was a very cute and funny dog with some typical characteristics and behavior. She was a vegetarian dog, because she was allergic to meat. She was very strongminded and she had a preference for men, more than women. Maybe that's why she was so fond of me. She liked classical music, but not the heavy symphonystuff. That always made her very nervous. She also got nervous from the sounds of laughing on the television, for instance when you were watching some comedyprogramm. She hated other dogs, but she loved cats, although that love often wasn't mutual.

She always got very exited when you took her for a walk. I often took her for a walk to the nearby park. It sometimes was a nice way to get in touch with people, because there were often parents with kids who wanted to pet Ranchan. Most of the time I took her around the big pond in the park. Some proof of her stubborn mind was that halfway the pond, when she got tired, she always wanted to take a rest and sit on a bench. Then she got completely frozen, not willing to move an inch, unless we were taking a rest and she could sit next to me on a bench.

I love animals in general, but I have always loved cats more than dogs, but for Ranchan I had a weak spot.

The next pic was taken in the same park where some of the pics of my previous posts were taken. I don't know if the golden necklace had anything to do with it, but this cat was called the Empress by it's owner, because of it's royal behavior. She didn't want to sit on the wooden table without a small blanket. Everywhere the owner took the cat he had to take the blanket with him, because without it she didn't want to sit on anything.

Finally two bird pics. One of a grey heron that I took during a long walk about 4 or 5 years ago near my hometown area and the second one of a kingfisher that I took in the same park as where I shot the pic of the cat above and some of the portraits in some of the previous posts.

The last 4 pics were all taken with the Minolta Vectis S-1