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

Adult Black-faced Spoonbill.

Black-faced Spoonbill from a different area.

Five Northern Lapwings arrived. As in previous years, all were juveniles.

A juvenile Garganey that stayed like this until the end.

Common Teal also wintering here. Adult female, non-breeding plumage.

A single adult female Northern Pintail, non-breeding plumage.

The Eurasian Wigeon also arrived alone and was associating with Spot-billed Ducks.

Juvenile female Northern Shoveler.

Male Northern Shoveler, moulting from eclipse into breeding plumage.

A juvenile Pacific Golden Plover on its own.

Black-winged Stilt, first-winter plumage.

Adult male Black-winged Stilt.

Common Greenshank, first-winter plumage.

Dunlin are scarce in Okinawa, but this season a flock of up to 20 has been present.

Long-toed Stint numbers have dropped off considerably.

Green Sandpiper, always on its own.

All the snipe have turned out to be Common Snipe.

Common Snipe are around here and there, like this.

The wintering Grey Herons have been increasing too.

A Black-winged Kite locking onto prey.

A Black-winged Kite diving steeply toward a patch of grass.

The hunt appears to have been successful — it has a mouse in its talons.

The Black Rat, with a vacant expression, is already dead.

The Black-winged Kite carrying its prey vertically to minimize air resistance.

It returned to the telephone wire and began eating the prey.

From a distance I could make out the bird being relieved of its prey by a juvenile (right).

The Black-winged Kite here appears every day, morning and evening, catching rats. It is a relatively unwary individual even by Ishigaki Island standards — it does not flush when a car passes beneath it.

Even from a distance, the whitish underparts from breast to belly are conspicuous.

A Black Drongo perched on a branch right in front of me.

This individual is a juvenile, so it has white spots from the breast down to the undertail coverts.

White spots are present on the underwing as well. From past records, Black Drongo apparently retain white spots on the underwing at least through the first-summer plumage of the year following hatching.

A dancing flock of 11 Pied Avocets. The monochrome Pied Avocets and the ash-grey sea under overcast skies together create an atmosphere of quiet austerity.

A flock of Pied Avocets circling overhead. Nine adults and two juveniles.

A Pied Avocet with Iriomote Island in the background. I had a feeling something like a certain catharsis washed over me.

Pied Avocets are a familiar sight on Ishigaki and Okinawa, but a flock makes them all the more striking.

Apparently they came in off the sea and landed on this beach around 4 p.m.

A juvenile Coral-billed Ground Cuckoo. It seemed to be using the drainage channel running behind some houses, but was chased off by a Brown-eared Bulbul and flew away somewhere.

Common Mynas were everywhere.

Large flocks of Light-vented Bulbuls along the coast. A migration movement, perhaps?

A first-winter female Narcissus Flycatcher. About three individuals present.

From this angle it's easy to see this is a Narcissus Flycatcher rather than a Ryukyu Flycatcher.

A Rustic Bunting foraging on the road. It looked to have just arrived on migration — even with cars and motorbikes passing, it didn't flush, just kept desperately pecking at seeds of some kind.

Also Rustic Buntings. Several small groups were noted.

Three Yellow Buntings found in the southern part of the island. Scarce on Okinawa.

Multiple Grey-streaked Flycatchers as well. November, but migration appears to be still ongoing.

At Agari-zaki, a Buff-bellied Pipit among a flock of Eastern Yellow Wagtails.

A noticeably slender-looking Buff-bellied Pipit. Perhaps it burned through all its fat reserves on migration.

Daurian Redstarts were present in good numbers — I could hear their calls throughout.

A small group of Northern Lapwings resting in a field. They looked tired.

An adult Eastern Buzzard. Several Common Buzzards also present. Other raptors noted: Grey-faced Buzzard, Common Kestrel, Osprey, and Peregrine Falcon.

A lone Tufted Duck at Kubura Mitou.

A Collared Kingfisher in flight, showing its beautiful wings.

A Collared Kingfisher scanning for prey from its lookout perch.

It came back to the lookout with a large crab.

A Collared Kingfisher perched on a piece of driftwood sticking up from the ground — a favourite spot. Perhaps an adult still retaining much of its breeding plumage.

A Common Kingfisher, noticeably smaller, also showed up — hunting for prey from a discarded bicycle.

A Collared Kingfisher resting at its high-tide roost. Shot from behind cover because of the close distance.

A few Caspian Terns are staying in the area.

A few Red-necked Stints as well.

Black-headed Gull, adult winter.

Black-headed Gull, first-winter.

Two Chinese Pond Herons have been appearing in the rice paddies and irrigation channels for the past several days.

The first Bean Geese of the season arrived. A small flock of six.

Rain was falling heavily at times.

Rosy Starling, adult male.

Rosy Starling, adult female. Noticeably smaller than the Oriental Turtle Dove.

A Common Starling was also among the flock of Rosy Starlings and Oriental Turtle Doves.

A juvenile Crested Serpent Eagle found by a local resident after being concussed in a traffic accident, and named "Hayate."

When the staff member at Yaima Village, the rehabilitation facility, placed the Crested Serpent Eagle on the ground, it took off with great force.

A Crested Serpent Eagle passing right in front of the press corps. It flew exactly the course we expected. ^^

A juvenile White-breasted Waterhen looking as if it's wearing a helmet. I saw a similar adult White-breasted Waterhen in the same area three years ago, so this could be one of its descendants.

This individual shows slightly less variation than the one above, but variation is still visible. Also a juvenile, so it may be a sibling of the bird above.

Adult White-browed Crake. It seemed quite wary.

The White-browed Crake gets harassed by the Eastern Yellow Wagtail and dashes into the grass when startled.

White-browed Crake fleeing from an Eastern Yellow Wagtail.

Juvenile Oriental Stork. It was banded on both legs with the tag "J0701".

It was foraging, but everything it caught was small — hardly enough for an Oriental Stork.

Adult Pied Avocet.

First-winter Pied Avocet.

A new individual juvenile Crested Serpent Eagle. It was foraging by taking advantage of ongoing rice-harvesting work.

This is Crested Serpent Eagle juvenile No. 7.

Same individual as above. What it caught was a small Teleogryllus emma cricket. Hard to imagine filling its stomach on that. I hope it makes it through the winter safely.

Adult Eurasian Spoonbill. It was gulping down large numbers of small gastropods.

Adult Purple Heron swallowing a swamp eel.

First-winter Taiwan Wagtail.

First-winter (Yellow-browed) Eastern Yellow Wagtail.

Adult winter (Yellow-browed) Eastern Yellow Wagtail.

Adult male Black-winged Stilt. I saw several flocks of a dozen or so birds.

A Bean Goose still on site. It seems to be growing less wary.

The season's first male Gadwall. Transitioning from juvenile plumage to first-cycle breeding plumage.

Male Eurasian Teal. Transitioning from juvenile plumage to first-cycle breeding plumage.

Male Eurasian Teal. Transitioning from eclipse to breeding plumage.

Eurasian Wigeon, male. It has changed into breeding plumage.

Black-headed Gull, first-winter.

The long-staying Collared Kingfisher. When the sun hits it, it flashes brilliantly and the contrast intensifies.

Even in shade, this blue. It hasn't noticed me, so it's relaxed and puffed up.

Compared to when it first arrived, the feather wear has advanced considerably. The Collared Kingfisher that stayed on Okinawa Island for about eight months had moulted quite a lot by year's end, but this individual looks like it still has a way to go.

After resting for about thirty minutes on its favourite rock, the Collared Kingfisher caught prey and disappeared into the trees.

A Malayan Night Heron that had caught prey. It couldn't pull the catch out in one go and was working it out little by little, but a car passed nearby and startled it into fleeing.

One of the two Chinese Pond Herons staying here. It shows almost no wariness at all.

Two Tundra Swans at the river mouth. These are individuals that had been observed on Iriomote Island.

This is a Narcissus Flycatcher, first-winter female, not a Ryukyu Flycatcher. This season I'm encountering Narcissus Flycatcher more often than Ryukyu Flycatcher.