These birds circle the skies around my house regularly, making their distinctive pit-kwee cries. I’ve wanted to get a decent picture for a while, but, sadly, this is the best I’ve managed. This one perches often, particularly on rainy days, in the trees in my garden. This photo was taken while it stood on a branch in the same tree the tree lizard fell from (LINK). I tried hard to creep closer to this splendid bird of prey but it’s much sharper than I am and so just zipped off before I had a chance.
These relatively small-sized raptors (41-46 cm in length) are endemic to East Asia and South East Asia, and they migrate between the two seasonally. Because we have mild winters in Okinawa, many of them make the island there home during the winter months, but come April they head back north to mainland Japan and we won’t see them again until late-September or October.
