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

A dark-morph Grey-faced Buzzard visiting for the fifth consecutive year. After a long while, I was finally able to photograph it in sunlight.

From behind. Still looks great, doesn't it.

A Grey-faced Buzzard contending with a Black-morph Grey-faced Buzzard. A female individual.

A Black-morph Grey-faced Buzzard showing aggression toward a Grey-faced Buzzard.

It was on alert with its back feathers raised and calling.

A juvenile Crested Serpent Eagle near the Black-morph Grey-faced Buzzard. There seems to be no friction between them.

A juvenile Common Kestrel. At a glance I thought it might be a Lesser Kestrel, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

A juvenile Lesser Kestrel. Completely unafraid — I was able to observe it up close.

A male Common Kestrel. An individual with no wariness at all.

A Grey-lag Goose with no wariness at all, settled into wintering mode alongside a Bean Goose.

A Bean Goose always in the company of the Grey-lag Goose. For a while there were about 40 birds combined — Bean Geese, Greater White-fronted Geese, and Lesser White-fronted Geese — but now it's just these two.

An adult Ruddy Shelduck. It has become a little less wary.

One juvenile (left) and two adult Ruddy Shelducks. There are two more elsewhere, making five Ruddy Shelducks on the island in all.

A juvenile Ruddy Shelduck flapping its wings.

Two Tundra Swans currently staying.

A male Gadwall.

A male Eurasian Wigeon.

A female Eurasian Wigeon.

A male Northern Shoveler.

Three Tufted Ducks at the settling pond. There are around 200 at the dam, though… ^^;

Rooks with not much wariness. Three birds, all juveniles. Moulting into first-winter plumage.

They had joined up with the Yaeyama endemic subspecies of Large-billed Crow.

Rook (left) and Large-billed Crow. The Rook is a size smaller than the Large-billed Crow, but the Yaeyama subspecies is a small one, so the two were nearly the same size.

White-browed Wagtail, first-winter plumage.

A Siberian Stonechat that has caught a spider.

Not in large numbers, but Siberian Stonechats trickle through Ishigaki-jima at a leisurely pace.

Pied Avocets foraging together. The bird in the background is in first-winter plumage; the one in the foreground is an adult in winter plumage.

A Common Crane settling in comfortably at its favourite paddy field.

It seems the Eurasian Spoonbill has decided to winter here as well.

Northern Lapwings are numerous again this season, as they were last year. This individual was on its own, but elsewhere several flocks of more than ten or so birds are wintering.

A small group of Wood Sandpipers. They were bathing.

Common Redshank in first-winter plumage. Small flocks here and there.

Common Greenshank in first-winter plumage. Almost all the wintering birds are juveniles.

Green Sandpipers are scattered here and there as well.

A dozen or so Red-necked Stints on the shore.

Kentish Plovers, Sanderlings, and Lesser Sand Plovers — the wintering contingent.

A few Black-headed Gulls have arrived.

Ruddy Shelduck — juvenile (background) and adult.

This is the evening of the day before the photo above. At that point there was only the juvenile.

Eurasian Spoonbill, juvenile.

It was catching small fish, apparently mosquitofish, in a flooded paddy field.

Ryukyu Dwarf Bittern, juvenile. It chased off a Yellow Bittern… ^^;