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

A male Brown Hawk-Owl. The female is presumably incubating.

With this Brown Hawk-Owl pair too, the female is incubating.

This pair is extremely wary, so hiding as I was, this kind of shot was all I could manage. ^^; Even when I hide, they seem to sense my presence somehow and are watching with their eyes wide open. That kind of look means they are startled or on guard. When Brown Hawk-Owls have that piercing, glaring expression like the two in the photos above, they are often not particularly alarmed.

They are so easily disturbed that last year I only visited twice to check on the nesting. This year I expect I will go back just once more, around the time the chicks are about to fledge.

A Little Tern that caught a goby. It seemed to want to courtship-feed, and was chasing another Little Tern around with the prey still in its bill.

A Kentish Plover caught in heat fitting for the start of summer. It was shading the eggs with its body.

The heat seems to be taking its toll on the parent too — it had its bill open. Three eggs are visible beneath its belly.

A female Japanese Sparrowhawk. Adults are about this grey, so I expect this is a young bird.

A young male Japanese Sparrowhawk, probably hatched last year. The adult male has an even more vivid blue-grey than this individual.

A male bringing in nest material. The Ryukyu Sparrowhawks of the Yaeyamas nest in broadleaf trees, but Japanese Sparrowhawks nest in Ryukyu Pine and ironwood.

A Chinese Pond Heron looking upward, fixing its sights on something.

What it had caught turned out to be a gecko that had been up in a tree. Geckos bask in the sun during the day, so perhaps that was what it was targeting.

It caught a spider of the kind often seen at the water's edge.

Locking its gaze onto the water's surface.

What it caught was a guppy. I usually see Chinese Pond Herons in pastures and paddies, so this was the first time I had come across one catching a fish.

A Chinese Pond Heron staring straight at me. After this it came closer. An individual this unguarded is unusual.

It seems to have finally started moulting into breeding plumage — feathers were being replaced here and there. It would be nice if it stayed long enough to come into full breeding plumage.

A Chinese Pond Heron lit by the evening sun.

A Kentish Plover chick. Already foraging on its own.

A Kentish Plover chick attempting to climb up onto its mother's back.

A Kentish Plover mother and chick.

This is the father.

Kentish Plover chicks scrambling under their mother's belly, startled by a jet aircraft.

A Kentish Plover chick coming out from under the parent's belly after checking that the coast is clear.