Sunflower & Tama River Walk: July 30, 2011

Sunflower is more than summer’s flower in Japan now.

The flower is useful to clean the radiation-contaminated soil. Sunflower is planted in many places in the nation after the Great East Japan earthquake.

Today, I visited a sunflower field in Setagaya ward, western Tokyo. The ward is residential area, but it has many small agricultural fields in its western area (near Tama River).

There were about 20 thousands sunflowers in about 30x100 meter area. They were full open.

Butterflies, bees and other insects were flying among the flowers.

I walked along Tamagawa River　from Unane to Izumi Tamagawa (about 6 km). The riverside was bushy. Many insects and birds were there.

Children were playing in the water and adults were enjoying fishing. There were ayu (sweetfish), shrimps and other aqua livings in the river.

The water was clean. But many wastes remained in the riverbank.