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

I found a Ryukyu Scops Owl sitting motionless in the forest in the rain. A Brown Hawk-Owl was incubating right nearby. I wonder if there's no conflict between them.

A Ruddy Kingfisher appeared in the sugarcane field. After catching prey it didn't eat on the spot — it carried it off. The chicks may have hatched.

A Ryukyu Scops Owl incubating just a stone's throw from my house. This is the male on watch. This makes three consecutive breeding seasons here.

A Brown Hawk-Owl also incubating. This is the male on guard duty. It raises its young in the same tree hollow every year.

A Japanese Paradise Flycatcher with its nest built on a Thespesia populnea branch. On Ishigaki Island they also nest in Macaranga tanarius, Rhizophora stylosa, Barringtonia racemosa, and various vines, in addition to Thespesia populnea.

A Black Drongo perched at the tip of a thin branch, waiting for prey.

After catching a dragonfly, it returned to the same branch and swallowed it there.

A Ruddy Kingfisher that spotted something on the ground. It was an unwary individual and hunted several times right in front of me.

A Crested Serpent Eagle hatched last year, in the process of moulting from juvenile to adult plumage.

"Micchan," wearing a metal band on the left leg, waiting in ambush for prey in a field.

Reef Herons in breeding plumage were encountered in rice paddies here and there. Quite a few seem to have come in.

A Crested Serpent Eagle being held by a staff member. The T-shirt from "Shima no Nakama from IRIOMOTE," a designer based on Iriomote Island, is very stylish.

A Crested Serpent Eagle bursting off strongly after being released.

It flew off showing the metal band on its leg.

It perched on a banana plant and rested for a while.

After circling overhead, it disappeared somewhere.

A Pheasant-tailed Jacana startled into the air by a crow. It appeared to be a young bird in first-summer plumage.

At the moment of landing, you can see the long toes and claws as well as a small claw-like "wing spur" at the carpal joint. Apparently the Pheasant-tailed Jacana and the Grey-headed Lapwing are about the only Japanese birds that have this wing spur. The Grey-headed Lapwing also has a "wing claw," though that structure is found in a scattering of other bird species as well.

The Pheasant-tailed Jacana was walking along the edges of rice paddies, feeding on small snails and the like.

A Crested Serpent Eagle attacking a Malayan Night Heron.

A Crested Serpent Eagle eating a large earthworm that a Malayan Night Heron had caught.

A Malayan Night Heron watching the departing Crested Serpent Eagle with what looked like resentment.

A female Malayan Night Heron, paired with the individual above.

A Black-tailed Godwit resting among Black-winged Stilts.

A Ryukyu Scops Owl I've known for a long time. It seems incubation has begun again this season, with the male standing guard.

The Ryukyu Brown Hawk-Owl appears not to have laid eggs yet. The male and female were perched side by side at the nest tree.

The Ryukyu Sparrowhawk will be starting to breed soon. This pair has been raising young at the same spot since 2019, but this season the female has changed. The previous individual had what appeared to be a healed fracture on the left leg, but this one does not.

A female Black-winged Kite. Last week there was a lot of courtship feeding activity. It should be about time for egg-laying.

A few Bridled Terns arrived. They have been seen on the ferry route since last month, and pairs already seem to have formed.

Of the five Black-faced Spoonbills, only one stayed on for an extended period.

Ruddy Kingfishers are at their most visible right now — I encounter them countless times in a single day. I can even spot around three pairs from my own garden.

A standing dead Satake palm in the village where Ruddy Kingfishers nest every year. They start at the top and work their way down, so the nest position drops a little each season — this year it ended up at about waist height… ^^;

This one nested in a Formosan subterranean termite mound in the forest. This is really the kind of setting I'd like to see Ruddy Kingfishers raising their young in.