Look What's In The Bushes

Wherever we travel, I'm always fascinated with the local fauna-especially when we're in climates different from our own.

Seeing we're 1/4 way around the globe--and on an island--I figured there would be nothing in common with upstate NY.
I was wrong....our first morning, before the break of daylight (and for a number of mornings after that) we were awaken at 6am by the chorus of a rafter of turkeys (yes, a group of turkeys is called a rafter).Every time I hear the gobbles I laugh, they are the silliest things.
The turkey photo here was taken at the end of the driveway, the balance of these photos were, once again, pilfered from the internet as my camera cannot get the close up photos I'd like; and I'm sure you don't want to see photos of the blur of a wing or grasses and foliage with captions like..."I promise, there's a bird in there".
So, meet the neighbors we've met....



Saffron Finch
















Java Finch












Kalij Pheasant- a family of these parades through the yard each day.












Zebra Dove-these little cuties (about the size of a sparrow) are everywhere and not all that afraid of humans.









Red Crested Cardinal













Myna-are also everywhere and they remind me of crows...a bit noisy but not always the same call; sometimes they sound like baby ducks and other times they sound like parakeets and once in a while there's a little growl-y sound that comes from them-like you'd hear from a starling.









Northern Cardinal-another bird we have in common.














One thing that's interesting to note, Hawaii has no native land mammals; every land mammal on the island was brought here from other places, whether intentionally like pigs, goats, donkeys (all now feral) or accidentally like the rat.

Rats were stowaways on ships and eventually became a huge problem in the now mostly defunct sugar cane industry. What did man do to combat the rat? He brought in the mongoose. Kinda cute, right? These little guys are a little larger then a squirrel, with a bushy tail and are slightly khaki in color. Most of us probably remember Rikki Tikki, the pet mongoose who saved the boy Teddy from Nag and Nagaina-the evil cobras in Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle book. I'm not so sure the real animal is as cuddly.

These little creatures are fiercely carnivorous and would probably eat a rat but, what man didn't realize was the rat and the mongoose need to be awake at the same time. The rats are nocturnal and the mongooses (not mongeese) are diurnal (awake during the day). So...there are still plenty of rats (more on that in a minute) and now there are plenty of mongooses. The trouble with this is the mongooses are devastating the bird population here by ravaging nests of eggs and chicks as well as eating nesting adults. Hawaii's endangered state bird the Nene has been greatly affected. On my morning walks it's not uncommon to see many mongooses cross my path as they go about their day.



The rats....I have yet to see them but, since there's an avocado tree right out side the bedroom window and rats love avocados, we can hear them moving about all night long. They make no vocal sound but they scavenge the ground under the tree AND the little buggers climb the tree to eat the fruit that's still attached.
First photo, beautiful ripening fruit.
Second photo, fruit that's been gnawed on.
Third photo...LokiLani...Chuck and Barbara's faithful Whippet mix. She's the rat patrol. She sleeps in a chair on the lanai and multiple times during the night you can hear her bolt across the lanai to chase off the vermin.

As more of what's lurking in the bushes makes itself known, I'll be sure to clue you in......