Windward Birds

In search of a good beach for swimming and relaxing, we headed over the mountain behind Honolulu towards Oahu’s windward side. It seemed a waste, however, to go over the mountain without stopping to take in the view from on high.

Nu‘uanu Pali Lookout

Of course, the moment we stepped out of the car, the wind was gale-force! But the views were pretty amazing, not to mention the flowers.

Once we’d been blown around enough, we headed back down the windward side of the mountain in search of that beach.

Kualoa Regional Park

This was where we found ourselves at lunch time, and while the beach wasn’t quite what we were looking for, it was a lovely, almost Zen view of the unfortunately named Chinaman’s Hat Island.

And there were birds everywhere, some of them even amenable to being photographed.

Cattle Egrets, of course

Red-crested Cardinal

They’re striking, with their red heads, and everywhere, and pretty bold, at that!

Common Myna

These guys were also everywhere, with a sixth sense for when they were being photographed, which they seemed dead set against! Apparently they’re incredibly invasive.

Zebra doves and a mongoose

The mongoose is also an invasive species in Hawaii, but I thought it was fun to see one.

Red jungle-fowl

Imported from southeast Asia by the first Polynesians to come to Hawaii, this is the ancestor of the modern chicken, and given my fondness for chickens and my pet Bantams, you can imagine I was enthralled.

Still, it wasn’t the swimming destination we were looking for. We continued up the coast.

Kokololio Beach

It didn’t look like much, but there were locals grilling in the narrow parking lot between the winding, two-lane King Kamehameha Highway and the coast, which we were starting to intuit was a positive sign. And indeed, the beach was perfect. (And there were baby junglefowl!)