Hawaii Time: Birds of Honolulu (Airport)
We flew to Hawaii for a fun adventure. It was our first big adventure since early 2020, and happened to land around a birthday for me. We had an idea to go to Hawaii for quite some time, but then my mother-in-law went and sent me some photos of birds she was seeing, and we got more excited.
Life got a little crazy with a lost job, then a new job, and thankfully, we still put it all together and got to go on this grand adventure!
The adventure started with a flight to Honolulu, with a very brief lay over. I planned just enough time to be able to go out to the airport garden and try to see a few new (to me) birds. I expected a couple of lifers, just at the airport, which is still funny to me.
So how did the airport birding go? It wasn’t remarkable, but in just under an hour, I saw 7 species of birds, of which 4 were lifers!
As the plane was landing, I spotted a couple of little spots moving around in the grass, then some on the concrete of another runway - Pacific Golden-plover! We got out of the plane and I went to the first airport window… another Pacific Golden-plover! There were at least 4 of them right on the runaway, hanging around little puddles!
Out to the garden, which is an amazing feature of this airport, we hung out on the walkway looking down, and tada… Hawaiian Lifer #1 - Spotted Dove
Red-vented Bulbul
And Zebra Doves (though I didn’t photo this one, doh). But I did get a photo of a duck that looked a little different, a Mallard x Hawaiian Duck (hybrid)!
We also saw quite a lot of House Sparrows and House Finches, just like we saw at the airport in California waiting to leave home! Overall, three lifers - at the airport! Stay tuned, I’ll get into the Kauai birds next!