YOUNG BIRDER'S NOTES: Birding a wetland in Hawaii

I haven't been able to bird for some time now so I am going to give you a flashback of the past, when I was in Hawaii for a trip and on a birding tour on the island of Oahu. I had passed a blowhole and seen white-tailed tropicbirds, zebra doves, Java sparrows and a mongoose. Now I was going to go to one of the few remaining wetlands on Oahu, where endemic Hawaiian waterbirds could be found. I think the moment I knew we were there was when I spotted an endangered Hawaiian stilt on the sidewalk . . .

HAWAIIAN STILT Himantopus mexicanus knudseni

We stopped and everyone started taking photos of the stilt before it flew off into the wetland on the other side of the road. Immediately I spotted a distant Hawaiian duck, though it was probably a Hawaiian X mallard hybrid. Hawaiian ducks are now found only on Oahu, the Big Island and Kaua'i. In Oahu, mallards have hybridised with them and now only a few birds in the far north of the island are purebred. I took a few photos then looked a bit further for a Hawaiian coot. I spotted two non-endemic wetland birds that are common wherever there is water or a lot of grass in Oahu - a black-crowned night heron and a Pacific golden plover. The birds were coming right up to us! A normally secretive Hawaiian moorhen was slowly coming out of the grass and giving us great views! Even more Hawaiian stilts were feeding in the water and I thought I saw a Hawaiian duck nesting!