Happy New Year to all our readers. The start of the year in the traditional Asian reckoning came with the new moon on this past Monday. This year is a mizu-no-e-tatsu, or "water-dragon" year. Most people are familiar with the 12 year cycle based on a series of animals, but the full system also includes the five basic elements or movements (go-gyo). Used together, these two designations comprise a cycle of 60 (5x12), which is the traditional base for reckoning not only years, but months and days as well. The last dragon year, 2000, was a metal-dragon (ka-no-e-tatsu); and the next one, 2024, will be a wood-dragon (ki-no-e-tatsu).

The traditional Asian calendar system is luni-solar, which means that although the months are reckoned by the actual movement of the moon around the earth, additional, or intercalary months (uruu-zuki) are added to keep the calendar in sync with the solar year and subsequently the changing seasons. The mathematics of the respective lunar and solar cycles dictates that intercalary months must be added at a pace of seven every 19 years. This year will contain one of these intercalary months.

The traditional Asian calendar also divides the solar year into a series of 24 equally-spaced segments or markers, called sekki. We are currently in the daikan, or "big-cold," the sekki during which the most severe weather usually occurs. The next segment, the risshun or "start-of-spring," is just around the corner, but don't let this lull you into a false sense of security. The 18 days prior to the start of any of the four major seasons is called the Doyo, and is considered to be a dangerous time marked by quick and unpredictable changes in the weather and other factors.

Even with the daikan big cold and the unstable Doyo, this is still a fine time of year to enjoy nature, especially if you happen to live in the warmer areas of southern and western Japan. Here in Kanto we may still get an occasional light dusting of snow, but the sun is climbing higher and higher each afternoon, and daytime temperatures are usually well above freezing.

Cycling is a good way to get around on calm days. A bicycle allows a country rambler to cover much larger areas than possible on foot, and is especially well suited to searching for birds in the wide open rice paddies around the marshes and major rivers. Lapwings (tageri), for example, breed on grasslands and cultivated fields well to the north of here, and migrate in during the autumn months. They slowly work their south as winter deepens, and by this time of year small flocks can be seen foraging in the Kanto paddies.

Lapwings are common across the Eurasian continent. In Scandinavia and Holland, people enjoy a popular pastime competing to see who can find the first lapwing eggs, which are considered to herald the onset of spring. This usually occurs in early March. Actual collection of the eggs, however, is prohibited. In England, where lapwing nesting has been in sharp decline, Natural England is countering with their excellent Environmental Stewardship program, which pays farmers subsidies to create suitable bird nesting habitats.

Lapwing flocks tend to forage out towards the center of the wide alluvial lowlands, where the line of sight extends a long way in all directions. This expansive view makes it difficult for potential predators, including birds of prey such as goshawk (otaka) and kestrel (chugenbo), to sneak up on them. Perhaps for this reason, I have never come across the birds in the narrow valleys, where the view is very restricted.

In addition, most of the paddies on the alluvial lowlands continue to be cultivated. These paddies, called hirata, are large by Japanese standards, and can be worked efficiently by tractors and combines. In the narrow valleys, however, the paddies, called yatsuda or yatoda, are much smaller, and many have been abandoned as uneconomical. Abandoned paddies are quickly overrun by reeds (yoshi) and other tall aquatic grasses, which grow too tall and dense to suit the lapwings' tastes.

Abandoned paddies may, over the course of a decade or two, even revert to marshland forests, usually dominated by Japanese alders. These trees are in full bloom at this time of year, but their drab wind-pollinated flowers often go totally unnoticed. Even from a distance, however, the branches can be seen to be packed with various structures.

Most numerous are wormlike structures hanging down in clusters from the branch tips. These are catkins, each of which is densely packed with dozens of tiny male flowers. These flowers contain stamens that produce the pollen, which is carried off on the winter winds. The reddish-brown female flower clusters are much smaller, and situated further back on the branch, where they wait to receive wind-blown pollen.

Also present are small woody structures that look like miniature pine cones. These are the strobiles that have developed from last year's female flowers. Each strobile contains dozens of tiny flat, round seeds, a few millimeters in diameter. These seeds are released as the strobiles dry out and open up. They are highly water-resistant, and will float around until being washed up on a suitable location.

Each alder tree sheds thousands or tens of thousands of seeds, and one or two pioneers can quickly increase to the point where the entire valley is taken over by an alder forest. When this happens, it's almost impossible to see that the area was once planted in rice paddies. This may seem like an ecological tragedy, but the change can also be viewed as a return to the original vegetation that covered the valley floors before wet rice cultivation was introduced to the Kanto more than two thousand years ago.

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Short is a naturalist and cultural anthropology professor at Tokyo University of Information Sciences.

(Jan. 26, 2012)