Birds

     Most of the native birds of Hawaii are gone, eaten by humans or feral mammals or crowded out by lustier introduced species.  Most of the avians you see here are tourists like us.  By far the most common birds we've seen are chickens and myna birds.  But there have been a few others.

 We stopped at a food truck for lunch, garlic butter shrimp with rice.  This girl was the owner's adopted pet.

Mynah birds.  They're noisy, gregarious, and more common than robins on a spring day in Ohio.

      Java sparrow, or finch.  They flit around in small groups, like siblings afraid to get too far from each other.

 This South American native, the red-crested cardinal, and our own American cardinal, (which is fairly common here) share the responsibility of spreading the Catholic faith among the native birds.  Missionary zeal has been a major influence on the history of Hawaii.

 A true Hawaiian!  The ae'o is a subspecies of black-backed stilt, endemic to the Islands.

An adolescent 'auku'u, or black-crowned night heron, native to Hawaii, and the top of the natural food chain in the coastal marshes.  Now they are preyed upon by dogs, feral cats, Indian mongooses, and cattle egrets.