Birds

I just saw a Japanese White-Eye bird (aka Mejiros) eating papayas in my yard.
These birds were introduced to Hawaii in 1937.


(not my picture)
http://www.honoluluzoo.org/japanese_white-eye.htm

I recently saw a Hawaiian Moorhen* (‘alae ‘ula in Hawaiian) in a drainage ditch down the street:


(also not my picture)

They are endangered and extremely rare. They can only be found on Oahu and Kauai.
http://www.fws.gov/pacificislands/fauna/HImoorhen.html

I see these Red-Crested Cardinals (aka Brazilian Cardina) once in awhile.
They were introduced to Hawaii in 1930 from South America.

(you may have guessed, not my pic)

Zebra Doves are the pigeons of Hawaii. They're everywhere!



I see these Northern Red Cardinals in my yard fairly often.



It's the same species of Northern Cardinal found in North America
and was introduced to Hawaii. In the islands it's found on Oahu and
The Big Island. I love catching their flashes of red in the Plumeria Trees
in my front yard!

The Java Finch (Java Sparrow):



This is another fairly common bird that was introduced from foreign lands.
I don't think that I've ever seen any in my yard, though.

We also have owls in Hawaii! I'll never forget the first time that I saw one because it scared the crap out of me! I was on patrol in the Aliamanu Crater and was on an old bunker access road hiding out in the dark. I heard this loud crashing noise in the brush that sounded like a troupe of Menehunes were coming to get me. I saw the shadow of a large bird land on a utility line. I shined my patrol car's spot light up and saw to my amazement that it was an owl! Prior to that I did not know that there were owls in Hawaii. After that I started seeing them infrequently at night, especially while driving through the Dole Pineapple fields at night. On Maui I was sitting in a Heiau at night and there were all these weird bird noises. I was talking to Coral on my cell phone and she said that it was owls. They were making quite a horrible ruckus. Here are a type of owl that lives on Oahu:

Short-Eared Owl* (Pueo in Hawaiian):
This one's endangered on Oahu, but fares better on the other islands.



Cattle Egret:



These guys are also really common and can be seen just about everywhere.
They frequent large grassy areas such as parks and playgrounds, especially when they're being mowed.
I saw one on top of a car in the Wal-Mart parking lot in Pearl City just the other day.

We don't have a lot of endemic avian species left here in Hawaii. Most of them were wiped out by other invasive species such as rats and mongoose. The mongoose were introduced to kill the rats, but there was an error because one species is nocturnal and the other isn't. Then the mongoose ended up finding the local bird species to be an easier prey.


* Endemic to Hawaii