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

First confirmed record of the season for Garganey. There were two of them.

Garganey. Whether it is a juvenile or in eclipse plumage is unclear.

Starting with the one I'm confident about: Common Snipe. I spotted around four in the same paddy field.

This looks like a Swinhoe's Snipe to me, though I'm not very confident. While I was watching through binoculars, a White-winged Tern flying overhead startled it and it fanned its tail feathers. From what I could see it looked like a Swinhoe's Snipe, but I couldn't get a photo of the tail, so it's not conclusive… (It does seem to be a Swinhoe's Snipe.)

Swinhoe's Snipe.

This one is a Common Snipe.

This one is a Swinhoe's Snipe.

An adult Black-shouldered Kite came flying toward me. It was good that it flew exactly the course I was hoping for, but after this shot I lost track of it. With my flight time pressing, I gave up the search.

It had been perched in a she-oak at first, but at some point without my noticing it had moved to a Garcinia tree.

True to its name, the Black-shouldered Kite has black shoulders. What is actually black is probably the lesser coverts, median coverts, and part of the greater coverts. The outer tail feathers are whitish, except for the central ones.

Viewed from below, you can see that part of the primaries and secondaries on the underwing are also black.

And those vivid red eyes are striking.

The tips of the primaries are coming in fresh.

Brown Shrikes were also moving through in good numbers.

A Black-tailed Godwit transitioning from juvenile to first-winter plumage.

There was a Greater Painted-snipe resting in the shadow of the rice plants. A female.

In recent years the Greater Painted-snipe seems to be increasing on Ishigaki-jima; on this day I saw three females in the same paddy field.

A Swinhoe's Snipe was also foraging out in the open and showed little wariness.

The Collared Kingfisher appeared shortly after I arrived at Toyomi Ohashi. It's been a while since our last encounter, but it looked well.

A Collared Kingfisher perched on its favourite branch. It appeared to be catching crabs and the like.

A month after the initial discovery, the crowd of people coming to see the Collared Kingfisher had dropped to zero. ^^;

The spot where the Collared Kingfisher appears, viewed from Toyomi Bridge. The branch it favours is toward the right of the frame. It also likes the area just in front of the observation platform on the left. When the tide rises to around the level shown in the photo, the Collared Kingfisher can no longer forage and disappears into the mangroves.