A daily record.
Featuring photos of wild birds and nature, mainly from Okinawa Main Island and Ishigaki Island

A female Japanese Sparrowhawk carrying pine needles as nesting material.

A female Japanese Sparrowhawk calling in a food-begging call to summon the male. The male did appear, but only for an instant — not long enough to get a shot.

A young male Japanese Sparrowhawk from a different location, photographed four days ago.

The female paired with the male above. In the upper right of the photo, a bill and nose are visible from the shadow of the nest. Photographed four days ago. It looks like incubation has already begun.

There was a crow's nest nearby. Every time a person walked along the path below, it was tearing off ironwood leaves. It looked quite agitated.

The female that had flown out from the nest returned safely and resumed incubation. A relief.

I was shooting from behind cover, and in moments like this the "soft continuous shooting" mode that quiets the shutter sound came in handy. The Brown Hawk-Owl noticed nothing of my presence and went straight into the nest. ^^

A male Brown Hawk-Owl. He is on alert — slimming his body and turning side-on. ^^;

This is a Brown Hawk-Owl photographed at a different location four days ago. Incubation has already begun.

Nearby I found a Oriental Turtle Dove that had fledged some time ago.

A male Ryukyu Green Pigeon keeping watch in front of the nest.

The male's tail feathers and part of the female's face are visible through a tiny gap in the leaves. Ryukyu Green Pigeons always build their nests deep inside dense foliage.

A male Ryukyu Green Pigeon sitting on the nest.

A mixed flock of Black-naped Terns and Roseate Terns. About eighty percent were Black-naped Terns.

Black-naped Terns and Roseate Terns inside the fishing harbour as well.

Black-naped Terns. The Roseate Terns didn't fly very close.

A male Japanese Sparrowhawk. This is a young bird hatched last year.

This is the female — also a young bird. This year I have been observing a young pair nesting at another site as well. Do Japanese Sparrowhawks pair up with other young individuals?

This is the nest of that pair. Unusually, they built it in a Terminalia catappa.

A male Japanese Sparrowhawk that came down to the ground to sunbathe and air its feathers.

Airing its feathers.

You can see that it is in the process of moulting into adult plumage.

A female Japanese Sparrowhawk. This one is also in the process of moulting into adult plumage.

Roseate Terns diving on a school of small fish. Two fish that appear to be trevally are visible in the water.

White-capped Noddy and Roseate Tern. Here you can see three fish in the water.

A flock of Roseate Terns flying over the blue sea.

A White-capped Noddy against the emerald-green sea in the summer sun.

A female Brown Hawk-Owl driven out of the nest hole now that the chicks have grown. You can see that the secondaries and coverts are worn ragged from incubating in a narrow tree cavity. The sex of individuals here can be told apart by the bill pattern.

The young couple who appeared to be breeding for the first time also had their chicks hatch safely. The chicks have grown quite large, yet for some reason the female is still brooding them. ^^: Overprotective because it's their first time raising young?

This is the pair whose nest-material carrying I confirmed the other day, and their chicks had already hatched.

Japanese Sparrowhawks on combat alert. The lower bird is the male, the upper is the female.

A female Japanese Sparrowhawk in emergency-scramble posture.

The male Japanese Sparrowhawk mostly attacked from behind. This was in contrast to the female, who came at me head-on.

A female Japanese Sparrowhawk letting out a cry of rage.

The male won't attack when we're making eye contact, but when he comes from behind he cuts it far closer than the female does. When I spun around and found his sharp talons right in front of my face, my blood ran cold… ^^;

I only dared take a few shots of the nest — too nerve-racking. There appear to be well-grown chicks inside. One is visible in the centre.

The male keeping watch over the nest tree from the shade of a tree, sheltering from the hot sun.

A Brown Hawk-Owl staring intently at the nest entrance, listening to the sounds of chicks shuffling around inside and practising their wing-flapping. This individual always perches somewhere so close you feel you could almost reach out and touch it.

A male Japanese Sparrowhawk sitting in the nest. Even when a man opened his car bonnet and started cleaning it right below the nest tree, the birds paid no attention at all, taking turns carrying nesting material and testing the feel of the nest cup.

A female (left) and male Japanese Sparrowhawk. It's rare to get a shot of a pair perched neatly side by side, so this one made me happy. Seeing them together like this really highlights just how small the male is.

Handholding the 600mm f/4 for the first time in a while — it was heavy. ^^;

A similar frame to the one above, but that was shot with the 600mm f/4 and this one with the 100–400mm. The difference in background blur is quite striking.

The male flew in and mounted the female's back directly, attempting to mate, but was rebuffed.

A male Japanese Sparrowhawk. The red eye and rufous-tinged breast are beautiful.

A female Japanese Sparrowhawk. Females are less wary, so this is the more familiar view.