GUIDED BIRDWATCHING TOUR
We'll drive you around Ishigaki Island to wherever the birds are showing best that day. Observation is mostly from inside the vehicle, and we keep it to a maximum of 3 guests so everyone can take their time.
A typhoon has finally come to Ishigaki Island, which had seen none until now. Black-naped Tern chick-rearing had been going well, but it seems part of the colony was damaged.
The backlash winds were fierce today, so I plan to check properly again another day, but it weighs on my mind.
The pair had been incubating, but it appears the eggs fell into the sea.
Fewer than the 11 species of shorebirds the other day, but here are six species of shorebirds at the paddy coast.
I confirmed this season's first Marsh Sandpiper, a Black-winged Stilt, a good-sized flock of Common Greenshanks, and others.
The first Wood Sandpiper of the season, an adult. Still largely in breeding plumage.
Also the first Black-winged Stilt of the season. An adult male.
Another individual was in the adjacent paddy field.
This one appeared the following day — a different bird. An adult female.
A Common Greenshank in late breeding plumage, bill open as if feeling the heat.
A flock of eight Common Greenshanks in a different paddy from the bird above. Some individuals were beginning to show winter plumage.
Wood Sandpiper turnover seems high, but the numbers are holding steady.
The Sanderlings at the river mouth have completely moulted into winter plumage.
Greater Sand Plover in winter plumage (right) and Grey-tailed Tattler in winter plumage.
A male Greater Painted-snipe threatening a Common Moorhen. I thought there might be chicks nearby, but apparently not. What beautiful plumage, though. ^^
In a July with no typhoons at all, chick-rearing by Black-naped Terns, Roseate Terns and Little Terns is progressing well.
There are several Black-naped Tern chicks about two weeks after hatching. Some birds are incubating, and some pairs are about to start laying. The Little Tern chicks have already fledged, and the birds were flying around the river mouth with their young.
A pair of Black-naped Terns. They looked as though they were about to lay.
A Black-naped Tern chick (right) and its parent.
A Black-naped Tern that came to bathe.
A Black-naped Tern colony. In the right half of the frame, two chicks of roughly the same age are visible.
A small flock of Little Terns. The individual at lower right is a fledged Little Tern chick, already beginning to moult into first-winter plumage.
In an unfamiliar spot there was a Crested Serpent Eagle with a green band on its right leg. It's a shame that it was dirty and I couldn't read the code.
A banded Crested Serpent Eagle on a narrow lane in the village. I think it's a male, but I have no idea whose bird it is or where it came from.
A pair breeding alone on a rocky reef away from the two colonies of Black-naped Terns and Roseate Terns.
This year is the first July since observations began in 1951 with no typhoon forming, and of course no typhoons at all have come to Ishigaki Island or Yaeyama. With no typhoon damage, the tern colonies are doing well everywhere, and the two main reefs are packed full. I think they are incubating on this small, precarious place because they had no other choice.
It is close to shore and they are raising young on their own, so I worry about crows.
A Black-naped Tern incubating. At other nests, chicks have already hatched and grown considerably.
Black-naped Terns, Roseate Terns, and Little Terns are flying, but they are distant.
Bathing Black-naped Terns and Roseate Terns. The Black-naped Tern is second from the right; all others are Roseate Terns.