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

A White's Thrush that caught an earthworm. It didn't treat us to the tiger dance.

This White's Thrush would walk a short distance and catch an earthworm. It was getting to its prey considerably more efficiently than the other thrushes, Brown-headed Thrushes, and Pale Thrushes.

Brown-headed Thrush, first-winter. For a moment it also looked like an Eyebrowed Thrush, but this is Ishigaki Island, so I went with Brown-headed Thrush — a process-of-elimination ID. ^^;

The lowest in the pecking order on this lawn was a Pale Thrush, first-winter. It was being chased around by the Brown-headed Thrushes and Dusky Thrushes.

A Eurasian Hoopoe in wintering mode.

Activity was low with light rain falling, but it came out into the open.

The Hoopoe, which dislikes rain, was sheltering under the base of a cycad and similar spots.

A Brown-headed Thrush showing little wariness.

Male Verditer Flycatcher perched in garden plantings at a field.

Facing the other way.

In flight, the silhouette of the Verditer Flycatcher looked like a Dark-sided Flycatcher.

It was perching on a dead branch near the ground and catching insects.

The Verditer Flycatcher's favourite perch.

A rare front-on view of a Verditer Flycatcher.

A Japanese White-eye eating Euonymus berries. The Verditer Flycatcher had been eating the same berries.

So it turns out you can see Eurasian Magpies in Fukuoka without going all the way to Saga.

A Naumann's Thrush accustomed to people. Park birds tend to be relatively unwary, but the birds in this particular park were especially tame.

Same individual as above.

In the cold, an Oriental Greenfinch was bathing.

A Black Stork in the distance.

A family of White-naped Cranes.

They were foraging in grassland and at a compost dump.

Nine Eurasian Spoonbills and one Black-faced Spoonbill were feeding in a drainage channel.

The single Black-faced Spoonbill mixed in among a group of Eurasian Spoonbills.

Red-footed Falcon, juvenile.

When two Red-footed Falcons flew around, the small birds scattered in all directions.

Hen Harrier, female. There was a male too, but I couldn't get a photo.

Rooks — a large flock of several dozen had come down into the rice fields.

There were plenty of Meadow Buntings, but Reed Buntings were on the sparse side.

The Eurasian Skylark has a different feel from the skylarks rarely recorded in Okinawa.

There were Buff-bellied Pipits in large numbers. I looked for any unusual pipit among them but found none.

Dusky Thrushes were everywhere too.

Four Common Snipe, apparently probing for insects in a compost heap.

Northern Lapwings too — more than I could count.

The Ariake Sea on the way to Isahaya. All Tufted Ducks.