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

Even though they are raising young, this odd Northern Boobook pair, whose daytime lookout I could never find, were both out keeping watch tonight, male and female together. It is a pair where it is hard to tell which is the male and which is the female, so I will look into that later.

After checking the boobooks I arrived at my Ryukyu Scops Owl spot and found a scops owl right away, but from the darkness I heard an unfamiliar cry. I got out of the car with a flashlight in hand and went toward the sound. A screeching "gyaa, gyaa" was coming from the base of a tree about 3 meters tall. Looking closely, I found a young Yaeyama flying fox that had fallen into the grass.

The parent was nearby too, but seemingly unable to come down to the ground, it just hung from the tree looking worriedly at the youngster. There was nothing else for it, so I pinched the claw sticking out of the wing, where the thumb would be, and pulled it out of the grass, then used a tripod to hang it from a tree branch. After watching for a while, the parent came, they had a touching reunion, and they disappeared into the darkness.

It was a small youngster, about the size of a black rat, but I was surprised at how tough and sharp the thumb claw on the wing and the claws on the feet were. You could never hold this with bare hands...

What scared me most during the rescue was the mother flying bat constantly flapping "bassa, bassa" around above my head... ^^;

Proper birdwatching for the first time in a while. Though all I did was go around my home area until early afternoon and for a little while at night...

The Northern Boobook, Ryukyu Scops Owl and Ruddy Kingfisher were all raising their young without trouble.

The Crested Serpent Eagle is also raising young, but this one is extremely wary and I can't get anywhere near it...

The calls of the Ryukyu Flycatcher and the Black Paradise Flycatcher have also become fewer. I have no photos, but I also met a few Common Emerald Doves. They are in the middle of raising young too.

On the coast, Little Terns, Black-naped Terns and Roseate Terns are breeding, but I don't have time to get that far. ^^;

I found the sixth Northern Boobook nest of the season. They are probably incubating, or the chicks are still small.

Even after dark the south wind was strong, probably from the "Kaji Fe" summer solstice south wind, and the boobooks and scops owls were slow to appear, but in a spot sheltered from the wind I watched several scops owls. This is a breeding bird I often see, but I still don't know where its nest is.

I met several coconut crabs crossing the road.

The Ryukyu Scops Owl nest I found in mid-May — when I went to check on it for the first time in a while, both the female and the male were out of the nest. I could also hear the chicks calling from inside the nest, built in a tree cavity. The chicks seem to be growing well.

I am currently watching scops owl breeding at four sites. At the earliest one, I should be able to see chicks early next month, and the pair there will probably fledge around mid-July. At the same site they fledged three chicks last year .

Right now you can see scops owls and boobooks in the daytime. Please do consult Spotter, Ishigaki Island's number one bird guide, who always looks after me . I hear that recently they have been photographing not only Ruddy Kingfishers but also hard-to-see birds like the Watercock and the Ryukyu Flycatcher. ^^

Spotter, Ishigaki Island's number one bird guide, showed me where, and I took my son to see the Ryukyu Scops Owl and the Northern Boobook. He was so taken with how cute they were that he made a fuss, saying "Let's catch one and take it home"... ^^;