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

The bird at the far right is a juvenile Whiskered Tern.

A juvenile White-winged Tern. Finally found one among three scattered flocks. Exhausted… but happy. ^^

An adult Oriental Pratincole in winter plumage. Even past the autumn equinox it is still hot in Okinawa, and all the pratincoles were standing with their bills open.

Swinhoe's Snipe.

I thought it was a Common Snipe, but on the advice of an expert it turned out to be a Swinhoe's Snipe in first-winter plumage. In the field I did check the tail feathers, but they were in mid-moult, so there was no clinching feature, and I was apparently misled by the overall colouration and the shape of the outer webs of the scapulars.

Common Snipe on the left, Swinhoe's Snipe on the right.

Ruff juvenile male (right) and juvenile female.

Marsh Sandpiper adult winter plumage.

Common Redshank adult winter plumage.

Red-necked Stint juvenile.

Long-toed Stint juvenile.

A male Red Turtle-Dove resting on a branch.

During the day the Red Turtle-Dove rested in a tree near the feeding area alongside Oriental Turtle-Doves.

Red Turtle-Dove adult male. A beautiful dove.

Startled by a crow, it flew up and perched in a leucaena tree.

After a while it came back down to the ground and was picking up food. The body is small, so it kept getting hidden in the grass and a full view was hard to come by.

The right eye is slightly watery. I wonder if it has conjunctivitis in one eye.

Brown Shrikes were recorded in small numbers across grasslands and farmland. Encounters have been frequent this year.