Oahu birds are TOUGH
Maybe its just me, but my targeted Oahu birds – and Kauai birds previously, have been much harder to track down than was the case in 2016. I had to work hard for all three endemic forest birds, and as far as the Mariana Swiftlets are concerned – I give up. And that doesn’t happen often. There are very few photo-evidenced sightings any more, and I have heard that the population estimate is now down to 12. More about that in captions below.
I’m in Dallas airport at the moment. Its 5:30am, and I’ve just arrived on the red-eye from Oahu, quitting in disgust on the swiftlets, and hoping to find the Green-breasted Mango (a large Mexican hummingbird) in McAllen in a few hours, and hold out hope that the Northern Jacana, also found in Sth Texas a few days ago will be findable.
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The ‘Aiea Ridge Trail provides the best vantage point for watching for Mariana Swiftlets flittering over surrounding ridges and valleys. Besides myself, I know of several other birders who have put in multiple days hoping to score one of the dwindling numbers of this translocated population (from Guam) of this highly endangered species.
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This is the mysterious WWII vintage tunnel within which the remaining Hawaiian translocated Mariana Swiftlets breed. Despite consdiderable effort, I wasn’t able to locate it – yet. Somebody needs to see what is going on – e.g. has the population completely disappeared, perhaps due to rat predation?
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The swiftlet tunnel is located in the upper left area of this photo. The super-busy twin carriageway of Highway H3 disappears into twin tunnels. The traffic creates a great deal of noice throughout the entire valley – perhaps that has been a factor in the decline of swiftlet numbers in recent decades?
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Oahu Elepaios are super-hard to find these days. Thankfully, I got a tipoff of a family group in the Wailupe Valley.
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Another member of the small group of Oahu Elepaios I crossed tracks with. A very high proportion of the rarest of Hawaiian birds I encountered this year are wearing jewellery.
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African Silverbill. This was a tougher bird than I’d expected; I found it at the fourth site I searched.