Pheasant-tailed Jacana

Pheasant-tailed Jacana (Hydrophasianus chirurgus) is a long-toed wetland bird whose breeding adults have white wings, dark underparts and an extremely long tail. Body shape, bill structure, plumage pattern and voice provide the strongest field characters. Age, sex and season may alter its appearance, so identification should combine several features and careful direct field comparisons with similar species in the same habitat (Wikipedia, general species account).

It walks on floating vegetation, picking insects and seeds; females court multiple males that incubate and tend young. Its movements and social behaviour vary through the year, with breeding birds generally more dispersed and non-breeding birds gathering where food is concentrated. Japanese records place it within the country's documented avifauna as a resident, migrant or visitor (Wikipedia, general species account; Wildlife of Japan occurrence records).