Okinawa Woodpecker for two

The weather has been great all week, and so I asked Ryan if we wanted to make a quick getaway to Okuma for some camping.  Honestly, we thought our days of camping were over once April hit, but winter seemed to continue with the highest temperatures in the mid-70s.  I'm not complaining, but it just doesn't feel like the sweltering heat that I've been warned comes with summer.  That means summer isn't here yet, so we can get some more use out of our tent!

Because this was an impromptu trip, we didn't use the camera very much at all.  Our focus was fishing from the kayaks, which we did on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning.  More precisely, we did a lot of casting.  It seems like we'll have to return to the Keramas to catch ANYTHING from our kayaks, because the fish around Okinawa are just too dang smart.

Ryan indulged me in a little birding.  The largest waterfall on Okinawa, Hiji Falls, is located just across from the entrance to Okuma.  It has been closed for many months due to damage from the super typhoon that hit Okinawa in October of last year.  The falls reopened in April, and is a place to see both the Okinawa Woodpecker and the Okinawa Rail.  We looked for these species and got a good look at one.  The road just past Hiji is still wiped out from the typhoon, but the result is that there are several dead and dying trees where the road is washed out.  Ryan spotted it first on our way up the road, and we both saw it again on the way down. We parked the car and walked back up the road to see if we could get a good look.

Ryan found it for the third time, and it gave us quite a show!  It was drilling on a broken branch and preening in between each bout with the tree.  The low light and distance from the bird were a little too much for my camera, but we got an excellent look through the binoculars.  Here are the best two shots, although they are still pretty grainy:

Island endemics! FUN!!!  Ryan gets bonus points for seeing it not once, not twice, but three times.