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

Crested Serpent Eagle in farmland.

A friendly Naumann's Thrush wintering here.

Same individual as above. Green lawn in the background.

Another approachable juvenile Grey-faced Buzzard.

Red-throated Pipit in the rice paddies. It was picking up old grains of rice. Buff-bellied Pipits, White Wagtails, and Eastern Yellow Wagtails were also flocking nearby.

Adult Purple Heron. Breeding plumage is beginning to show.

Naumann's Thrush, first-winter. With Naumann's Thrush, sex is difficult to determine.

Naumann's Thrush from behind. Throughout the winter it has not moved at all, keeping to a very small area.

A passing walker startled it and it fled up into a branch.

A Chinese Pond Heron that had caught a dragonfly nymph.

The Chinese Pond Heron was working its way along a paddy bund, searching for prey.

A juvenile Crested Serpent Eagle foraging in a paddy field where rice-planting was underway.

The Great Egret was catching tiny aquatic insects. The prey was so small I could not make out what it was eating.

The Eastern Buzzard seems to regularly attack Eurasian Coots.

A Eastern Marsh Harrier spotted from the car, soaring high overhead. Perhaps it will be moving on soon.

Compared to when it first arrived, the yellow on the bill has deepened noticeably — a sign it is growing up.

The juvenile Crested Serpent Eagle always looks like it is starving. It seems to be struggling. There is no light in its eyes.

A Common Shelduck staying along the coast.

Pied Avocet, first-winter. It is in the same location as the Common Shelduck above, but if you get too close it bites.

Little Bunting transitioning into summer plumage.

There were around 20 Little Buntings in the same rice paddy.

Pecking at fallen rice grains or something similar.

The numbers of Brown Shrikes on Ishigaki Island have increased considerably, with northward-migrating birds apparently joining the overwintering ones.

The first Whiskered Tern of this spring — still in full winter plumage.

They were flying over the rice paddies catching aquatic insects brought to the surface by the puddling.

A juvenile Grey-faced Buzzard keeping an eye on the sky above. Other individuals may be passing through at high altitude.

A flock of Pacific Golden-Plovers that appeared to have just arrived on migration. They all looked exhausted.

Pacific Golden-Plover, first-winter.

Many of the Little Ringed Plovers wintering here have already moulted into breeding plumage.

The Common Greenshank is still in full winter plumage.

The Crested Serpent Eagle is becoming more active as the breeding season gets under way.

Black-footed Albatross, adult. It was taken in at Tamayose Animal Hospital.