ここにタイトル！
I have been walking along the Kamogawa River to work every morning for the past four years since I moved from Makuhari, Chiba to Kyoto. My former workplace, the Institute of Developing Economies, was located foreshore, so I would walk to the beach on my way home to look for petrels, cormorants, and other seabirds. After nearly 15 years of such a life, in Kyoto, I have come to enjoy a different environment, the Kamogawa River, as it shows various scenes around four seasons. I have come to feel closer to birds and water than ever before, not only the ducks, crows, pigeons, and sparrows, but also kites, great blue herons, white herons, and others names I do not know. I have to hurry to the office of CSEAS, but I can’t help but look for birds along the river, on the Kojinbashi Bridge, and on the stepping stones for a brief moment.
Some time ago I learned that the seasonal movement of birds is called bird migration, so I began to study the relationship between birds and humans while researching migration, one of my specialties. Last summer, I got a copy of Flight Ways: Life and Loss at the Edge of Extinction by Thom Van Dooren, an environmental philosopher. This popular book was introduced by Dr. Miho Ishii in the January 2022 issue of Gendaishiso (a Japanese philosophical journal). It is expected to be a research field that complements the natural sciences. By focusing on the intertwining of animals and humans, this book takes a new approach to the issue of extinction, which has already been studied extensively, and examines human society through birds. I have found that reading an analysis featuring five different birds living in different environments – albatrosses, vultures, penguins, whooping cranes, and crows – can also help us understand human society.