水鳥の里,手賀沼

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After its half a century activity at Shibuya, Tokyo, the Yamashina Institute for Ornithology has been opened on 1 December 1984 at its new site near lake Tega, Abiko City, Chiba Prefecture.
The lake Tega had been one of the four marshy lakes, Imba, Wada, Ushiku and Tega, which provided the most important winterquarters for waterfowl in central Honshu. Geese, the Bean and White-fronted, concentrated at lake Wada and ducks preferred Tega where joint duck-netting grounds existed since old tims. A pair of ducks caught were annually presented to Toyotomi and then Tokugawa Shogunates. The pochard, Aythya ferina was characteristic wintering species of the lake and many rare and accidental species of waterfowl had been obtained and observed, including Snow Goose, Canada Goose, Canvasback, Long-tailed Duck, Rudy Shelduck, etc.
After the world war II, ducks were persecuted by indiscriminate gun-hunters and traditional netting came to the end. Moreover, main area of waterfowl resort was reclaimed for rice fields.
However, remaining water surface is now protected from hunting and is still visited and inhabited by ducks, coots, moorhens and reed buntings, etc. The water pollution of lake Tega has been reputed as worst of lakes, but measures of water purification are being advanced. We saw and heard a green pheasant, an Ural owl and other birds in back-hill wood of new institute site, and it would be a tempting idea to have, in future, a waterfowl laboratory somewhere along the lake coast.