Birds of Ford Island - Pearl Harbor

With the drop of a hat, I had to schedule a work trip to Hawaii this past week. A quick browse of my birding books at home made it clear that even though Hawaii is a part of the United States, at least from the perspective of Roger Tory Peterson, David Allen Sibley, and the National Geographic Birder's Journal, Hawaii is not a part of North America. So, after catching my flight from Baltimore to Dallas to Honolulu, and meeting up with colleagues at the Hotel lobby for dinner, we made a trip to Barnes and Nobel where I picked out A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Hawai'i - The Main Islands and Offshore Waters by Jim Denny.

My meetings were on Ford Island which is a part of the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. I have discovered that history and modern function go hand-in-hand on military bases. Each morning when we pulled into the parking lot of the meeting center, we faced a plaque commemorating the resting place of the U.S.S. California that lies just off sea wall. A little further to the right is the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial - much smaller in perspective to the harbor than I expected, and with modern destroyers and cruisers docked in the distance with the U.S.S. Missouri, newly painted, off to the left. I wonder whether the officers, and sailors, and civilians who work here have to force themselves to conscientiously think each day where they are, like I do when I come up out of the Smithsonian Metro stop onto the Capital Mall - into a place of living history.

I had little time to myself the three days in Hawaii, so the only real opportunity I had for viewing and identification was the walks to and from the cafeteria in the Air Museum on the base. What struck me most was how easy it was to notice that there are different birds there, even though there were familiar birds as at home - the House Finch (G), Rock Pigeon (H), and House Sparrow (I). But for what was exotic, a quick review of the Hawaiian bird book indicated were intentional introductions that have greatly influenced the local fauna. The Cattle Egret (D), Saffron Finch (C), Common Myna (E), Red-crested Cardinal (F), and Nutmeg Mannikin (B) are are all firsts for me, but aliens to Hawaii. Being a novice birder, I double checked over two days of quick viewing to try to figure out whether what I was seeing was the uncommon Black-bellied Plover (A) and not the common Pacific Golden Plover - I won't feel comfortable with this identification until I return and have an expert's help. There were others I was not sure of their kind - was that or was that not a Blue-winged Teal, and were those Mourning Doves or Zebra Doves that just flew by? These will remain mysteries for now.

Regardless, there is much more time for birding that needs to be scheduled in for any future trips, at least for the roadside kind. My travel partner from work (1) was pretty accommodating for the little bit of birding I did while he was with me. The only time he protested was when I was about to whip out the binoculars at breakfast one morning while sitting at an open-air restaurant patio overlooking Waikiki Beach - something about some guy might get the wrong impression that I was watching women walk by and not really looking at birds. Well, we didn't really have that much time for me to gaze up in the trees looking for new-to-me tropical discoveries. Maybe next trip I will be able to see the "real" Hawaiian birds - not migrants or aliens, but the ones of only now imagined woodlands and highlands.
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(1) Can you tell in the lower photograph of Waikiki Beach which is the flightless bird that migrated to Oahu on an American Airlines flight from Louisiana? Hint, he is the one whose long-sleeved-shirted plumage is distinctive from the native flightless birds of similar kind but with their distinctive floral print plumage.