Tweets:

I just returned last week from 10 days in Pele's home and started
today to deal with the thousands (literally) of tweeters messages that
accumulated in my box during spring semester when i was too busy to deal
effectively with email. My trip to Hawai'i was primarily to visit family
and only secondarily to look for birds and other interesting island
residents, but i was pretty happy spotting 18 species of birds including
5 endemics.

Endemics:

Noio (Hawaiian Black Noddy)
Nene (Hawaiian Goose)
'Io (Hawaiian Hawk)
Pueo (Hawaiian Short-Eared Owl)
'Apapane

Regular Visitor:

'Ulili (Wandering Tattler)

Introduced Aliens:

Northern Cardinal Yellow-billed Cardinal Common Myna
Zebra dove Rock Dove Gray Francolin
Hwa Mei Mejiro (White-Eye) Kalij Pheasant
House Sparrow House Finch Yellow-Fronted Canary

After seeing two pairs of nene, i noticed that every photograph of nene
also showed pairs; i guess they stick pretty close to each other. The
pueo, as noted in an earlier posting, was out in daylight flying low over
the fields at Ka Lae, presumably hunting. The 'io i saw driving to the
airport on my way to leave: not a good close view, but unmistakably a hawk.

I was also delighted to see fountaining lava, numerous green sea turtles,
mongooses, spiders, beetles, many fishes i won't try to list, native and
exotic vegetation (also too numerous to list), family members and other
gorgeous sights. Hope you all are seeing equally interesting things this
summer.

Paul Talbert