Basket of stuff. | 一籃野

March 02, 2025 晴れの日🌞
Destination: 日比谷公園 Hibiya Park, Tokyo

🦆🦆🦆　Winter visitors chilling along the moat outside the Imperial Palace.

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More than two weeks into my working holiday adventure in Tokyo, friends from Hong Kong were visiting in early March.

In the early morning, I strolled to Kichijoji Station to catch the Chou Line to Yotsuya. Chuo Line is the speediest and convenient transport for me to connect with the urban city. Then, I transferred to Kasumigaseki Station and met my friends at Hibiya Park.

It just so happened to be the day of Tokyo Marathon, so the traffic was a bit clumsy with quite a lot of road closures. But, we were here for the ducks. 🦆

Just right between the park and the palace, there lies the Hibiya moat. A shiny, green-headed duck with a bright white body was floating on the water, that was our target of the day – male Falcated Duck.

In Hong Kong, we barely get a glimpse of these winter visiting ducks up close with details. While this time, I got a clear look on the intricate, scaled-like feathers of this duck and the metallic emerald green colour gave him a majestic look that feels like a fit with the location. The female was as low-key as she could be, sharing a similar silhouette but a much duller green wing patch on her secondary wing feathers.

There were two male and two female Falcated Ducks, they were foraging for algae from beneath the water with Eurasian Coot and Gadwalls.

It was a good chance to visit the Imperial Palace as I was not very motivated to do “touristy stuff” on my own, so we walked closer toward Sakurada-mon (桜田門) and 2 pairs of Common Pochard were chilling out in the Gaisen-bori Moat (凱旋濠)

Eventually, we did not actually make it inside the Imperial Palace. After all, no one was really interested in looking at the gigantic palace, but ducks? YES.