[Composed 1/3/2026]
We've had an amazing day today, from our 2 am start and epic sunrise, to the breathtaking experience of hiking the Haleakala crater and the opportunity to see endangered native birds in the wild. But I'd be remiss if I didn't mention some other, seemingly less exotic critters that we saw today.
Let's start with this guy:
He's a Red-crested Cardinal. He certainly looks like an upgrade from the cardinals we have in our backyard in DC. He's an introduced species, brought to Hawaii around 1930. I can't tell if his ancestors were brought here as pets and accidentally released, or intentionally released in the wild, because you know, they were pretty. Apparently folks were way chiller back then about adding animals to the ecosystem.
What I found notable about this guy is that he belongs to the family Thraupidae, not to the family Cardinalidae. The Northern Cardinal, as you may guess from the name, is part of the family Cardinalidae. This difference makes these birds as related to each other as cats and dogs (both mammals, but in different families).
Like the silversword and agave plant, these relatively unrelated birds evolved similar features independently. Apparently the bright colors and crest that I'm used to seeing on the Northern cardinal are so effective that nature reinvented them for the Red-crested cardinal. Good design is good design, I guess.
This guy joined us for lunch at Satori, an open air sushi restaurant in Makawao.
At this point, feral chickens have become part of the background noise of Hawaii. Unfortunately for the chickens, they aren't exactly loved. In the state's 2026 legislative session there are six bills alone that relate to feral chickens; none of them good news for the birds. So yeah, while tourists may find them novel, the locals not so much. Consider HB-319, which has this description:
[HB-319] Exempts from the crime of cruelty to animals in the second degree the extermination of insects, vermin, and pests, and the extermination of feral chickens on private property by the property owner, under certain conditions.
Ouch. Mr. Chicken, I do believe the locals mean business. Good luck.
Calling this a 'creature' may be a stretch, but hear me out:
These pictures show a glass artist hard at work at the Hot Island Glass store in Makawao. Off camera is another artist assisting him. They're crafting a base for a previously made glass marlin; the so-called creature in this scenario.
Shira and I both enjoy watching glass blowing demonstrations, but this one was on another level. This wasn't just watching a vase or cup be shaped on the fly--which is very cool, and an accomplishment in its own right--this was watching a piece of complex sculpture being created in real time.
Even with our limited knowledge of glassblowing, we could tell we were watching an impressive feat. The final maneuver of putting the completed sculpture in the annealing oven took the aid of a third store attendant. When the work finally made it into the oven, the onlookers breathed a sigh of relief and erupted into applause.
And finally, there's this guy:
He's a Black-crowned Night-Heron. In this photo, he's foraging for food at our hotel's water feature. This shallow pool holds captive flamingos and koi carp. He seems to cleverly converted it to his own private, and safe, hunting grounds. He's a decorative enough bird that he blends in. Well played, dude!
Given that we have Black-crowned Night-Herons locally and they are found across North America, I figured surely they were introduced to Hawaii. And I figured wrong.
What I know as a Black-crowned Night-Heron has been known to Hawaiians as 'Auku'u for hundreds, if not thousands of years. He's considered an indigenous resident, that is, he arrived here naturally and lives here all year long. What makes the 'Auku'u unique is that, unlike other indigenous residents, he's not endemic. That is, he's not unique to Hawaii. So he's just as Hawaiian as say the Nene we saw earlier today, but unlike the Nene, he hasn't been a resident long enough to evolve uniquely Hawaiian characteristics.
One hint that changes are on the horizon is that "unlike continental birds, those in Hawai'i are diurnal". In nature, as in most of life, the only constant is change.
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