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

While watching a Swan Goose, I spotted a Kentish Plover nearby with a strangely long bill. When I looked through binoculars, the tip of the bill was curved like a raptor's.

National Geographic ran an article saying that virus-caused bill deformities in wild birds are seen as a problem worldwide. The deformity is apparently called "avian keratin disorder". Could this Kentish Plover's deformity be caused by that?

More Dunlin have arrived this season, and they can be seen in rice paddies, waterways, on the coast and elsewhere.

While out driving as my child napped, I went around the river mouth where Caspian Terns turn up every year at this time, and found three resting on the sand. These three Caspian Terns seem to be moving back and forth between the river mouths on the east and west sides of the island.

I can't tell whether they are the same as the bird I found in a rice paddy the other day.

There was a strange Peregrine Falcon. I wondered whether it might be a juvenile Barbary Falcon or Saker Falcon, but Peregrine Falcons don't come to Ishigaki in large numbers, so my experience with them is limited and it's difficult.

This juvenile Peregrine Falcon was being attacked by an adult Peregrine Falcon, which was driving it out of its territory. I bet it will be gone by tomorrow.

Common Kestrels winter all over the island. There are many of them, so they show up everywhere.

Added 10 November 2019

After consulting people in various quarters, it was concluded to be an ordinary juvenile Peregrine Falcon, but it is very likely a bird born abroad rather than in Japan. Birds raised in Japan don't seem to have plumage like this. However, Peregrine Falcons are distributed worldwide and have many subspecies, so it's hard.

The two Pheasant-tailed Jacanas I found in the paddies yesterday were too far away, so I went back today and photographed them again. They are not very wary, and when I watched quietly from the car they came close. They walked through the grass, apparently catching small shellfish and insects. This makes the ninth Pheasant-tailed Jacana of the season.

While I was watching the Pheasant-tailed Jacanas, a big white shape came down from the sky. It was a Black-faced Spoonbill. It walked around the paddy at its own pace, swinging its spoon-like bill from side to side to catch aquatic creatures.

In the same paddy, one Sharp-tailed Sandpiper in wintering mode and a dozen or so Dunlin are staying.

A juvenile Garganey has come into the paddy. I think it is one of the two Garganey I photographed at the settling pond the other day.

The breeding plumage of the Eurasian Teal is becoming conspicuous. At the settling pond there were a few Eurasian Wigeon. Others included Tufted Duck, Eastern Spot-billed Duck and Little Grebe.