Rice Fields, Tsukubamirai Live Cam

This fixed camera looks across a wide rice paddy on the farmland of Tsukubamirai in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. A village with trees lines the left horizon, and a wooded grove, a green-clad building and a power pylon stand beyond the field.

Tsukubamirai lies in the south of Ibaraki Prefecture, roughly 40 km northeast of Tokyo, on the flat plain that the Kokai River crosses. The plain is split into rectangular plots by narrow farm roads and drainage channels, and rice is the main crop. Hamlets with old trees sit among the paddies, so the horizon stays low and open.

The camera stays on one spot at the edge of a plot, low above the ground. Its wide-angle lens curves the horizon and gives the paddy surface most of the frame, so the picture follows the farm work and the rice-growing cycle. The open sky shows the light change through the day.