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

A Crested Serpent Eagle in flight. The eye is sharply in focus.

A Crested Serpent Eagle lunging at prey. Not clear what the prey is. I had a 2× teleconverter on but it focused reliably.

Different prey from above. Looks like it caught a crab.

As long as I keep the subject in the viewfinder, the α9 II's high-performance autofocus keeps tracking it.

An adult Great Crested Tern with its juvenile (foreground) in tow.

Juvenile and adult Black-naped Tern.

A fledgling Roseate Tern (background). The parent has flown off somewhere and it looks worried.

The parent brought a small fish to the fledgling, but it seems full and is looking the other way. The parent appears to be trying to coax it into flight practice with food.

Juvenile Great Crested Tern. Apparently they don't breed anywhere in the Yaeyamas outside the Senkaku Islands. This one has come all the way from Kita-kojima in the Senkaku Islands.

Great Crested Tern. Standing next to a parent (right), the size difference is striking.

Black-naped Tern chicks. Presumably siblings.

A juvenile Black-naped Tern making a huge fuss after spotting a parent arriving with food.

Roseate Tern, Black-naped Tern and Little Tern in flight. They took off in alarm at an Osprey.

A family of Black-naped Terns spending time at their own pace. The juvenile at the back is a Roseate Tern.

A juvenile Bridled Tern. It didn't seem able to catch food yet and was being fed by a parent.

The first Common Redshank juvenile of the season.

And the first Wood Sandpiper juvenile of the season.

Wood Sandpiper heading into winter plumage.

A Common Redshank juvenile in flight.

Common Redshank, adult winter plumage.

Moult progress varies considerably among individual Red-necked Stints even within the same flock.

First Pacific Golden Plovers of the season — a flock of a dozen or so.

Sanderling in late breeding plumage. A few winter feathers already coming through.

Greater Sand Plover and Lesser Sand Plover resting on a sandy beach.

A Kentish Plover was running along the sandy beach, snatching small insects.

An adult Common Sandpiper in a rice paddy.

Black-winged Stilts are gradually increasing in number. Almost all males, for some reason.

An adult Long-toed Stint transitioning into winter plumage.

Common Greenshank in winter plumage.

While watching Black-naped Terns, a large tern came in and landed. It was a Caspian Tern.

Roseate Terns were breeding in the same location as the Black-naped Terns, but fledging seems to happen a little earlier than the Black-naped Terns.

A Black-naped Tern carrying food to a recently fledged chick.

On this day, only Black-naped Terns were coming to the coast.

Little Terns have nearly finished raising their young, and the juveniles are already independent.

The Whiskered Tern was on its own. Late breeding plumage.

Caspian Terns are large and impressive. Breeding is over, moult has started, and the plumage is looking ragged.

A Little Tern transitioning into winter plumage.

Juvenile Pacific Reef Heron. Two of them were following a parent bird.

Curlew Sandpiper moulting from breeding to winter plumage.

This one also in transition to winter plumage.

Same individual as above. The flight feathers have not yet changed.

An individual thought to be female.

This one might be a male.

The individual with the most advanced moult.

Two birds at the far end of the rice paddy. So distant… ^^;

Wood Sandpiper, adult. Almost fully in breeding plumage but well worn and ragged.

Long-toed Stint, late breeding plumage.