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

Oriental Storks go into the grass so often that, despite their size, they can actually be surprisingly hard to spot.

An Oriental Stork in flight. It was large and impressive.

When I found it, it was standing like this at the edge of a sugarcane field.

It was pushing steadily into the grass, apparently searching for prey.

In the sugarcane field it caught a snake. Zooming in, I could see it was a habu. Even habu venom appears powerless against the Oriental Stork's long, powerful bill.

The Oriental Stork didn't slam the habu against anything — it simply crushed the head with its formidable bill to finish it off, then swallowed it whole.

This is what it looks like with wings spread. A juvenile, clearly. It must have hatched and grown up on the continent this year.

A Garganey that has been staying at Sankaku Pond since January.

The Garganey on the right is thought to be a newly arrived individual.

A Garganey (upper right) mixed in among Common Teals.

The two Garganeys stayed close to each other within the large flock of Common Teals, keeping near one another.

Black-faced Spoonbill at Toyosaki tidal flat.

A Black-faced Spoonbill bathing.

It caught a small insect from the soil in a field.

The black markings on the breast are still patchy.

It is also in the process of changing into breeding plumage.

A flock of about 60 cormorants.

There are still plenty of Eurasian Wigeons around.

A Northern Shoveler startled into flight by a surfer.

The white morph Pacific Reef Heron.

The dark morph Pacific Reef Heron.

A male Brown Shrike transitioning from first-winter to first-summer plumage.

It regurgitated a pellet.

Grey-faced Buzzards in farmland have little wariness of people; if you shoot from inside a car, they won't fly off.

A male Grey-faced Buzzard. It spotted prey and dropped to the ground, but seemed to lose it in the grass and spent a while walking around searching.

A female Grey-faced Buzzard.

Grey-headed Lapwing, first-winter plumage. The eye colour is dark and dull compared to the vivid red of adults.

Will the black breast-band seen on adults appear from here on?

A male Zitting Cisticola. It was flying back and forth over the fields, trading territorial calls with a neighbouring male.

A Red-throated Pipit that has moulted into beautiful breeding plumage.

This one is also almost fully in breeding plumage.

Pacific Golden Plovers are still in winter dress. Among a flock of about 30, not a single bird had changed into breeding plumage. Perhaps from next month we'll start to see some in their beautiful breeding plumage mixed in.

A male Kentish Plover.

A female Kentish Plover. This year too, around the Golden Week holidays in May, we should be able to see her with adorable chicks in tow. ^^

A male Garganey that turned up at Sankakuike.

It was sleeping most of the time. It looked like it was recovering from the fatigue of migration.

There was also a male Garganey in the channel that feeds into Sankaku Pond.

The water was barely 10 centimetres deep, but it was feeding away diligently.

All the male Common Teal that had been wintering at Sankaku Pond were gone; only a few females remained.

The Little Egret was going through the motions of bringing twigs and building a nest.

Greater Sand Plover in winter plumage. Something seems to be stuck to it around the neck.

The Greater Sand Plover was found just before sunset.

There were two Greater Sand Plovers.

The first Oriental Pratincole of the season. Numbers will keep building from here, with some individuals continuing north and others breeding on the Okinawa mainland.

The Oriental Pratincole had changed into its beautiful breeding plumage.

In a nearby park, a Whistling Green Pigeon was nest-building.