Hawaiian Birds and Wildlife Mega Photo Post

I just got back from my honeymoon on Hawaii (the Big Island and Kauai). It was fantastic. Here are photos of as many birds as I could get, starting with exotics and introduced birds, then seabirds and shorebirds, then some of the islands beautiful endemics. Then, what the hell, some photos of other creatures. Enjoy.

Exotics

A Northern Cardinal! This one at Kilauea NWR. Looked large-billed to me. 

Japanese White-eye. These little guys were absolutely everywhere, from high-elevation forests to seaside bushes. I got fairly used to recognizing their wren-ish chatterings, but they seemed to have a variety of vocalizations. Pretty birds, but frustrating when looking for endemics at high elevations because these birds are the same greenish color as many of the honeycreepers.

Red Junglefowl. We saw a few on the Big Island but these guys were EVERYWHERE on Kauai. Literally the most common bird. Friendly enough, but woke us the hell up every morning.

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Wait, HOW Many Birders Are There?

Birders seems to have a bit of an inferiority complex in the world of outdoor recreation.  Some of it I think is social (we lack the macho chest-puffing of hunters), some of it is institutional (we lack the political organization and historical traditions of hunting and fishing).  I used to think that part of it was simply that there are fewer of us.  But, apparently that isn't true.

I recently stumbled upon this US Fish & Wildlife Service's 2011 National Survey of Fish and Wildlife-Associated Recreation and, frankly, it's pretty amazing.  [Apologies to all who wrote about it when it was released (I know 10,000 Birds did), but I somehow missed it.]  For me, the highlight of the report was this simple statistic: There are 22.5 million "away-from-home" wildlife watchers in the U.S., compared to 13.6 hunters.

There are ten million more birders than hunters!  Unbelievable.  And the best part is, this report was smart about how it asked the question.  In previous surveys of birders (that I know of), it was hard to distinguish between "birder on the road for a twitch" and "guy who glances out his window at his feeder."  For me, that lack of distinction made be question statistics about the numbers of birders.  This report, though, specifically identifies those who "took trips or outings of at least 1 mile from home for the primary purpose of observing, feeding or photographing wildlife."  Sounds good to me.

Better yet, the report lays out the economic impacts of each of these hobbies.  Hunters - with their NRAs and their Ducks Unlimiteds and their Federal Duck Stamps and their L.L. Beans and their million TV shows while birders have one (for now) - spend a total of $33.7 billion per year.  Birders, on the other hand, spend a whopping $54.9 billion, even more than anglers ($41.8 billion).  Incredible.

What does this mean?  It means that it's time for us to flex our muscles a little bit.  A great place to start is the proposed Wildlife Conservation Stamp.  We've earned the right through our participation and our spending to have money put aside directly for the preservation of non-game birds.  Birders need to be more vocal about their impacts, and use our numbers advantage to shift political priorities in our favor.