Amami Superman Photography

My friend Kevin is visiting me for 7 weeks. He wants to learn Japanese and I'm trying to help him out. I also thought it would be cool if he experienced a few things here in Amami that only a few get to experience. One of which is "Habu Tori". Habu Tori means basically, "To catch Habu". Habu is one of the many poisonous snakes here in Amami and is probably the most poisonous. It's a pit viper and it's venom is a hemotoxin. One bite from a habu and it is sure death if you don't get the antivenom in time. But we'll leave this for another post sometime.

So I took Kevin out to catch some habu. We did catch one but it was small and I did the catching. So we didn't take any pictures. When I feel confident he can catch one, I'll take some photos and post them here when I let him do it.

While we were driving around to different areas, we came across the Amami Black Rabbit several times. The Amami Black Rabbit is an endangered species, only found here on Amami Oshima and on Tokuno Shima.

We probably saw more than 20 last night while we were driving. We stopped to take photos but it's pretty difficult. By the time you have the camera ready and pointed, they're already heading for the bushes on the side of the road. We did, however, come across one that didn't run directly into the bushes. It's the first time I've ever seen something like this and it made me wonder. It was almost in the middle of the road and I went to drive around it. It then ran diagonal across my path to the other side of the road. I went to drive around it on the other side and it did the same thing. It ran diagonally across my path back to the other side of the road again. It kept this up for a good 100 meters at least. I got the feeling that it didn't want me to go any further or it wanted me to chase it. Why it didn't run into the bushes like regular, I don't know. Maybe it had some young it was trying to lure us away from. I don't know. Either way, I got a few shots of it.

Canon PowerShot SD850 IS, 5.8-23.2mm @ 5.8mm, 1/60 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 -- EXIF




Canon PowerShot SD850 IS, 5.8-23.2mm @ 18.6mm, 1/60 sec, f/5, ISO 250 -- EXIF

I forgot my D60 at home by the door when we left. I wish I had it then. I'll be sure to bring it along next time we go out. Funny thing about this, most people never get to see a Black Rabbit. Black Rabbits only come out at night and they're always way up in the mountains. I see them quite often on my ventures out to catch Habu. But I've never seen so many in one night like last night.