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

A Ruddy Kingfisher with a worryingly low sense of caution.

A male Ruddy Kingfisher I came across on a forest road paid absolutely no attention to a passing walker.

A male Ryukyu Dwarf Bittern bathing.

After the bath, it gave a good shake.

A Ryukyu Dwarf Bittern in flight. It is in early breeding season and looking very beautiful.

Four Little Whimbrels in a sugarcane field. They were distant at first, but by watching quietly from the car they gradually came closer.

Front-on view of a Little Whimbrel. Utterly charming. ^^

It spread its wings for us, just briefly.

At first they were this far away, and the sugarcane was taller than the Little Whimbrels, making them hard to see.

Pin-tailed Snipe on Ishigaki-jima are winding down for the season, but I managed to find at least one.

Pied Avocet — three birds at several locations.

Swinhoe's Snipe were still present in good numbers.

A different individual.

A female Greater Painted-snipe. It is the only snipe that breeds on Ishigaki-jima. The breeding season has already begun.

Freshwater waders are scarce this season, but Marsh Sandpipers are as reliable as ever.

Wood Sandpipers in summer plumage. Quite large numbers turn up every year, but this spring they were few.

Common Greenshank also seemed considerably scarcer than in previous years.

A Slaty-legged Crake foraging in a scrubby woodland bordering farmland. There was also a Pale-capped Pigeon.

A young Purple Heron attacking a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper. Video below.

A young Eurasian Spoonbill. It was walking through the paddies, picking off small molluscs.

Black-faced Spoonbill (front) and Eurasian Spoonbill. Both are young birds.

A male Falcated Duck, in mid-transition from juvenile plumage to first breeding plumage.

A male Ruddy Kingfisher.

It hadn't been long since it arrived on migration, but it was already digging out a nest hole. Since the tree was a Ryukyu pine, there's a good chance it will give up partway through…

A Little Whimbrel with zero wariness.

Underwing of the Little Whimbrel.

Two Little Whimbrels in the same paddy field. Apparently the peak count was around 60. That's a staggering number.

There weren't many people watching. Has everyone grown tired of seeing them?

A Far Eastern Curlew in a lotus-root field. Perhaps it was injured — it appeared to have no sight in its left eye.

Also confirmed: a solitary Black-tailed Godwit. Maybe it had just arrived and was exhausted — it stayed in this posture the whole time.

A few Temminck's Stints noted. Some summer plumage was coming in, but still a long way to go.

Only one Pacific Golden Plover. On the mainland, is this about when the Pacific Golden Plover migration is just getting started? The timing is quite different from Okinawa.

The Grey-headed Lapwings seem to have entered the breeding season — they were battling crows all over the place.