Tourists from all over who come here to admire this small snowball-shaped Japanese bird will be ecstatic about their charm. These images are almost too good to be true, as a skilled photographer captured the tiny birds “exercising” using fragile tree branches as gyms .

Shima-enaga, which means “long-tailed island bird” in English, is often called the “snow fairy” in Japan. They are long-tailed titmice and can be found in the forests of Hokkaido, Japan’s second largest island.

Hiroki Takahashi, an islander living in Sapporo, has long been trapped by snow fairies. After a month of searching for snow fairies in the forest, Hiroki created a series of beautiful images of the little bird “at work” in December 2022.

Hiroki explained his lucky day to The Epoch Times: “The long-tailed tit is extremely fast and difficult to photograph, [but] its egg-like face is so adorable that I had to walk more than 20,000 steps each time. day to capture it.

Hiroki said that in order to get a “good frontal shot” of the small birds, he also had to adopt a variety of poses and postures, as long-tailed sparrows do not stay still in one place for long before moving along. many different directions.

Hiroki took some close-up shots of the snow fairies’ adorable acrobatics in the tree canopy with a Canon EOs R5 and 300mm lens, including them bouncing around tree branches, moving upside down, falling through the air middle and even the way he looked when he did it. pull up. dense tree branches.

Shima-enaga are small birds that typically weigh about 1/5 ounce (about 8 grams) and are 5 to 6 inches (about 13 to 15 centimeters) long when mature. They have a slightly long tail. They are omnivores and eat mainly insects and other invertebrates. Shima-enaga are common year-round on the island, but they really become special in winter when they fluff their feathers in preparation for the extreme cold.

Adult Shima-enaga lose their thick black “eyebrows,” unlike mainland long-tailed tits, so their flawless white faces with small beaks look like cotton balls flows upward. The small, fuzzy birds also have another important characteristic: If they cannot successfully mate in the spring, the birds will band together to help the other 20 to 30 birds in the flock raise their young.

Shima-enaga, a precious symbol of Hokkaido island, is often found on jewelry and handicrafts.

His career as a photographer began with landscape and portrait photography, and it was only later, after becoming a father, that he became interested in single-lens reflex cameras. In early 2022, he started walking in nature and took the first photos of Ezo flying squirrels. A passion for animal photography was born.

Hiroki was surprised by the amazing responses he received after posting his most recent snow fairy images on Instagram.

“It makes me happy,” he told The Epoch Times. “Hokkaido is quite small compared to the rest of the world, but in winter the animals grow furry and extremely cute in preparation for the cold. I would be happy if we could spread a lot of sweetness across the planet.