Dan's Feathursday Feature: A Scare in Tokyo

Dark clothes, dark eyes, dark voices. They stood in the small Tokyo park as I entered. Five, maybe six. In the early morning light it was not easy to distinguish shadow and shape. When I passed the low cement blocks at the entrance to the park, several heads turned my way and stared with obvious malintent. Even those whose heads did not move, it was clear they were watching, listening, thinking, sizing me up, looking for a bulge in my pocket, measuring with their gaze how far to the other side of the park. Checking if there was anyone behind me. Was I an easy mark? For one brief moment I thought it better to turn tail and go around the park instead of through it. But I was committed now. I could not back down.

So I walked on, struggling not to betray the nervousness I was feeling. One of them was very close, on my right. I returned his gaze until he finally broke his stare, looking away and poking a crooked nose toward his companion on the park bench. They exchanged knowing glances and murmured something evil-sounding to the group in the corner. Five or six more dark shapes emerged from the shadows where I had seen no one before. They moved toward a space between me and the park exit, calmly, sinisterly, darkly. Their beady eyes sparked when they caught the morning light. Their feet made no sound on the gravel, but their dark clothes rustled stiffly, as they puffed out their chests in a display of dark macho. I measured in my mind how many paces to the exit. I would not run. I was a foreigner here, but I would not give them the satisfaction of knowing they were intimidating me. I walked, my outer calm masking my racing heart. There was a trash barrel in the center of the park, overflowing with the weekend’s waste; it would offer a bit of cover. But as I passed it, the largest of them—probably the leader—suddenly raced toward me, spread his winged mantle, veered sharply to the right just before hitting me, and landed on the rim of the barrel.

I turned, clapped my hands sharply and stomped the ground, watching with quiet satisfaction as the black winged creatures flew to refuge in the surrounding trees and caw-cawed their displeasure. The leader fixed me with his sinister stare, remembering my face, no doubt, until the next time I would pass through his park.

Dan's Feathursday Feature is a regular contribution to the COS blog featuring the thoughts, insights and photography of Chicago birder, Dan Lory on birds of the Chicago region.