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

When the Okinawa Rail was released from the cardboard box, it made a 90-degree turn right in front of the Ryukyu Shimpo reporter.

It ran past a Okinawa Times photography staff member who was lying on the ground.

And sprinted away like a startled rabbit.

You can see a metal ring on the right leg.

Apparently it had some paralysis in its legs when it was taken into care, but judging by the way it ran, it looks like it's doing just fine.

They also showed me the non-public breeding and rearing facility. This was its first public reveal to the press as well.

This chick hatched four days ago — a Okinawa Rail. The food is apparently a specially formulated mix of pellets made for ibis, combined with nutrients specific to Okinawa Rail.

A Black-naped Tern had come to the nesting site.

Last year no typhoon damage hit, and many chicks fledged. Hoping for many more chicks to fledge this year!!

I also came across a wild boar. The boars you encounter in Yanbaru are always slow and dopey, so you can get quite close.

Among the owlet species that breed in Okinawa, the Ryukyu Scops Owl chicks are by far the cutest. ^^

The parent. No idea at all whether it's female or male. ^^; Somehow it feels like a female to me.

Shooting straight into strong backlight — a struggle both to shoot and to process.

Twenty to thirty metres from the Ryukyu Scops Owl family, a Brown Hawk-Owl was nesting. It has nested here three years running.

Compared to the first year I found them, they seem somewhat more used to people — I could shoot at this distance.

This is a different Brown Hawk-Owl. Here too the nesting spot overlaps with the Ryukyu Scops Owl. The tree hollow it was using back in 2016 when I first found it was taken over by a Ryukyu Scops Owl this year. ^^;

It seems to be keeping watch through the night — every now and then it glanced toward the tree hollow where the female was incubating.