Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 16:49:44 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Benjamin Poscover Subject: Back from Hawaii MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Jet lag seems to have abated enough for me to make this post. We = just returned from an Elderhostel program that gave us a week of = programs on Oahu and a week on Maui in the Hawaiian Islands. The = emphasis was not on birding, however we carried binoculars and searched = at every possible opportunity. =20 I want to thank those who responded to my post requesting = information prior to leaving. Of our six target birds (Fairy Tern, = Amakihi, Apapane, Bulbul, White Rumped Shama), we saw two. =20 We arrived a day early and after settling in went to the Ala Moana = Park on Oahu. The first thing we saw was two immature Black Crowned = Night Herons. We thought we heard a Red-eyed Vireo and there was a Red = Crested Cardinal and so it went. Lesser Golden Plovers, of which I had = only seen three to date and two of the sightings were in question, were = ubiquitous as were Black Crowned Night Herons. The beaches of both = islands were almost free of birds. This was a surprise to us. There = were no gulls and few shorebirds, Sanderlings and the Lesser Golden = Plover. As all the trees had leaves, seeing birds in them was not easy, more = like birding here in summer. =20 H. Douglas Pratt's Birds of Hawaii and the Tropical Pacific served = as our field guide. Of the thirty species we listed, fifteen were life = birds: Red Crested Cardinal Red Whiskered Bulbul Red Vented Bulbul Spotted Dove Zebra Dove Common Myna Java Sparrow Olive White Eye Japanese White Eye Brown Booby Fairy Tern Common Waxbill Hawaiian Duck Hawaiian Coot Chukar Ben Poscover Towson MD bposcove@bcpl.net ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================