Animals in Osaka Castle Park

Falcons, Pigeons, Turtles, and Owls

Oleh Takako Sakamoto

Community writer

Pretty pigeon perched on a fence of Osaka Castle's outer moat

Look at the cheeky expression on his face!

He was swimming closer and closer to me, maybe hoping for food...

I found them on the Gokurakubashi bridge, the first bridge I crossed to enter the grounds of Osaka Castle. I wonder if they are called, 'falconers'?

The biggest bird on the right is guess what? an owl!

The falconers were smiling at each other, but if I was one of them and a falcon was on my arm, I would have been frozen with fear!

The other day I visited Osaka Castle and the vast Osaka Castle Park. It took me two-full days to explore just the half of it because the park is huge! It is 1,055,643 ㎡, which is 6.5 times as large as Hibiya Park in Tokyo and 81 Tokyo Dome can be built inside the park! However, it wasn't just the huge space that took my time to explore, there were many things to see inside the park, and the animals living in the park were no exception. They were so fascinating that I couldn't proceed until I fully enjoyed them first. What surprised me most was the falconers. Well, falconers are humans, but humans are also animals, right? And I'd never seen real falconers in my life, so it made me really curious. Enjoy the animals I found inside Osaka Castle Park, and if you'd like to see the real ones, go visit there when you are in Osaka next time!