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

Brown-cheeked Rail. The first Brown-cheeked Rail I've ever photographed. So happy!

A Brown-cheeked Rail shaking its body after bathing.

It spread its wings for me!!

The lower body of the Brown-cheeked Rail looks rather like an Slaty-legged Crake.

A front-on view of the Brown-cheeked Rail. What a charming face!!

Common Shelduck resting on the shore. They looked tired, as if they had only just arrived.

Male Gadwall.

Male Eurasian Wigeon.

Male Northern Pintail.

Male Eurasian Teal.

A Peregrine Falcon flying toward the ducks.

A Grey-faced Buzzard shaking itself out — psyching up for battle?

Several Ospreys come and go in turn.

Pacific Golden Plovers, Grey Plovers, Kentish Plovers, Common Greenshanks and others taking flight in alarm at the Peregrine Falcon.

Male Pale Thrush. This individual didn't flee even when walkers passed nearby.

A gap in the clouds, and the Eurasian Oystercatcher lit up in the light. What a magnificent bird!!

I arrived at the Wajiro tidal flat at around 9 a.m. As the tide came in toward the midday high tide, the Eurasian Oystercatchers took flight.

The underside of an Eurasian Oystercatcher's wings is pure white.

A flock of about 20 Eurasian Oystercatchers included a mix of adults and first-winter birds. The one on the right is in first-winter plumage.

In the ratio of adults to juveniles, the juveniles appeared to be slightly more numerous.

Eurasian Oystercatcher. Both in first-winter plumage.

Adult Eurasian Oystercatcher. The adult's eye colour is more vivid than that of the juvenile.

Eurasian Oystercatcher in flight. Wish it had been sunny.

There were also large numbers of Common Shelduck. The pale shapes visible behind the Common Shelduck resting on the mudflat are all Common Shelduck too.

Sanderling and Dunlin were swirling in flocks of several hundred. The duck floating on the water is a Falcated Duck.

This Ryukyu Scops Owl was perched in a pine tree jutting out over the river, apparently waiting for frogs coming to the still water below. Even when it disappeared for a while, it always came back — clearly a favourite hunting spot. That said, this individual is not very accustomed to people, so I only pressed the shutter once. It would be a shame for the owl to abandon such a valuable feeding site, and I'd lose one of my pleasures too. ^^;

There's a large Huntsman Spider on the branch it's perched on — I wonder if the owl has noticed?

This is a Ryukyu Scops Owl living in the park, extremely tame. Even if I accidentally got as close as about two metres, it didn't flinch at all.

This individual treated me to a slightly muffled, descending call: "wok, wok, wok, woh". I wonder if, like the Ryukyu Scops Owl, the Ryukyu subspecies also has different calls between males and females?

A male Ryukyu Dwarf Bittern. Beautiful.

A female Ryukyu Dwarf Bittern. This individual can be identified by the chipped tip of her bill.

The wing pattern is clearly different from the female Von Schrenck's Bittern the other day. Both are wonderful birds. ^^