We saw lots of birds while in Hawaii, just sitting in the back yard I saw many species that were new to me and others, like the morning doves, that were quite familiar.
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| Japanese White Eye--East Asia native |
Familiar or not, all of the birds I saw were non-native species.
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| Nutmeg Mannikin--tropical Asia native |
As nice as it was to see new birds, I would have been happier if the ones I saw were native species.
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| Saffron Finch--South America native |
Competition from introduced species of birds and the introduced mongoose along with habitat loss have caused a decline in the population of native birds.
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| Yellow fronted canary--Africa native |
Before the arrival of humans there were 113 species of native birds in Hawaii. Of these, 71 have become extinct and 31 are threatened or endangered.
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| Yellow Billed Cardinal--South America native |
While these birds were lovely and delightful to watch imagine what we have lost with extinction of the wonderful native birds and plants, not just in Hawaii but the world over.
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| Red Junglefowl--aka chicken |
The introduction of species has been going on for a long time. The Junglefowl was introduced by the Polynesians.
Find more views of our world at Our World, Tuesday; hosted by Arija, Gattina, Lady Fi, Sandy and Sylvia.
See more birds at Wild Bird Wednesday, hosted by Stewart.
24 comments:
Such beautiful and colorful birds, Martha!! Your photos are delightful as always! A great look at your world. Hope your new year is off to a great start and that you've had a good weekend!
While these are beautiful birds, and your captures are wonderful, I'll bet the lost native species were spectacular, especially being an island.
Nice photography of the birds. They are very beautiful and out of place, but what do we do now?
Terrific shots, a lot different than my backyard birds!
Great shots!! Boom & Gary of the Vermilon River, Canada.
Wow, Hawaii has beautiful birds. Your photos are lovely. Now, I want to take a vacation to Hawaii just to go birding!
We have had native birds decline at a tremendous rate from introduced species, too. Sad. But the colors you found are quite bright and cheerful!
Adorable collection of feathered characters! The little nutmeg mannikin is such a cutie!
Wonderful collection of excellent photography ~
A Creative Harbor) aka ArtMuseDog and Carol ^_^
Nice shots Martha. We have a similar problem here. The introduced house sparrows became such a menace in Wester Australia, that the government, in it's great wisdom, Took to aerial spraying them, thereby killing all the native birds as well.
The birds you've photographed are spectacular, Martha. Too bad the island's native birds couldn't survive the onslaught of the interlopers in that tropical paradise.
Loved the photos but the statistics you quoted are not so good.
Gorgeous shots!
So much to see in your superb post for WBW!
Beautiful birds and I definitely agree with your comments about introduced species.
I do understand your concern Martha -- I really do. Introduced species are a huge problem here in Florida as well..I guess anywhere where it's warm and living things take hold easily.
But that being said, I must tell you that the picture of the yellow-billed cardinal is one of the loveliest bird pictures I've ever seen. That white-eyed is a lovely bird too....well, they all are. But I'm glad you shared your concerns so well instead of just posting the marvelous pix.
How wonderful to visit a place with so many lovely birds!
Hawaii is a disaster story from a bird conservation point of view - shame that these birds are not native.
Cheer and thanks for linking to WBW.
Stewart M - Melbourne
How interesting to see so many unique species. Great photos of them, too.
The introduced species are all so bright, but the native birds would be better, there and here!!
wow a yellow billed cardinal! These all were great photos to see.
Hahaha, I think we call it rooster in the Phils.
Hello! I'm just dropping by from Linda Reeder's blog. This is such a fun post. I haven't seen a few of those birds in Hawaii. I do see those Saffron Finches and wondered what they were. Thank you for sharing these photos and information. You are an amazing photographer.
By the way, in the 34 years that we lived on the mainland and then returned to Hawaii, the bird life had dramatically changed... very unhappily. Even more native birds had gone extinct and birds like Java Sparrows and Bulbuls had taken over.
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