Hawaii: Oahu and Kauai

After 11 hours of flying spread over two days, I arrived in Hawaii on Friday March 4. The birding began the next morning with a rush of new birds. One of my favorites is the white tern. One was "nesting" in a tree near our hotel. White terns do not actually build nests, they just lay an egg on a branch.

The scenery and weather are beautiful, as anyone who has been to Hawaii already knows. We have seen lots of amazing birds that are very hard to see anywhere else in the USA.

I was very fortunate to get a clear view of the fast-moving, Oahu Elepaio. Each of the three biggest Hawaiian islands has its own species of elepaio. If Darwin had visited Hawaii instead of Galapagos, perhaps we would have learned about Darwin's elepaios instead of Darwin's finches.

Oahu Elepaio

Bristle-thighed curlews spend the winter in Hawaii before heading to their breeding grounds in Alaska. The Hokuala Golf Course s a good place to see them, and we saw about a dozen.

When you are on the golf course, an enthusiastic cry of "Albatross" can mean that someone just shot three-under par on a hole. In our case, it meant someone just saw an albatross. It flew past us and disappeared behind some trees. We relocated it on its nest.

Laysan Albatross

After just one full day of birding on Oahu, it was time to fly to Kauai. Before leaving, we spent a little time birding around the airport hoping to find a Eurasian Skylark, - and we did!

Our first stop on Kauai was the Hokuala Golf Course. We saw a family of Hawaiian geese, also known as Nenes. There were only 30 individuals remaining in the world until conservation efforts helped build the population to its current level of more that 3,000.

Kilauea Point on Kauai overlooks the ocean. We saw some humpback whales in the distance and red-footed boobies everywhere.

Kilauea Point, Kauai

Red-footed Booby

Day two on Kauai began just before dawn at Waimea Canyon.

Waimea Canyon by the dawn's early light

Wild chickens seem to be everywhere. They are known as Red Junglefowl, and they count as an established wild species for my big year count.

Other nice finds for the day included:

Hawaiian Monk Seal

Red-crested Cardinal

Pacific Golden Plover

Common Myna

Saffron Finch - squinting

Apapane