Useful Links for Hawaii Island Birding
(a work in progress…)
http://www.hawaii-forest.com/index.html
This is quite a wonderful website, offering eco-tours and a great deal of additional information for birders. I particularly liked the section which shows both bird pictures and downloadable bird calls and songs for many Hawaii forest birds.
General Information/Photos about Native Hawaiian Forest (and Other) Birds
http://www.hawaii.gov/dlnr/consrvhi/forestbirds/
http://www.hawaii-forest.com/birds.html
http://www.state.hi.us/dlnr/dofaw/cwcs/Conservation_need.htm
http://www.jackjeffreyphoto.com/native_birds.html
http://www.fws.gov/pacificislands/webmap.html
http://www.stanford.edu/~petelat1/index.html
http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/species/index.html
Na Ala Hele Trail and Access System
The Na Ala Hele website gives brief descriptions and locations of some of the many hiking/birding/hunting trails available on different islands within the state. One purpose of my website is to augment a portion of these descriptions with TOPO! topographic maps, trail elevations and GPS coordinates for each trail.
Department of Land and Natural Resources
Here is contact information for DLNR
Division of Forestry and Wildlife (DOFAW)
The Division of Fish and Wildlife is a part of the Department of Land and Natural Resources. In order to go hiking in watershed areas on Hawaii Island, a 6 months duration, free, renewable permit is necessary. In Hilo, the appropriate office is at: 19 E. Kawili Street (at the corner of Kawili and Kilauea), Hilo, HI 96720; Phone: (808) 974-4221. Office hours are ~8 AM- 4 PM M-F. This office also has brochures dealing with hunting regulations and areas, as well as cabin locations and accomodation rules. The staff is very helpful and friendly.
U.S Fish & Wildlife Service Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge
On-line Technical Journal Articles about Hawaiian Forest Birds
Articles by Dr. C. John Ralph et al.
Hiking and Birding Equipment I’m Using
Every few years the Cornell Lab of Ornithology does a comprehensive review of binoculars for birders. This review helped me to settle on a pair of Nikon Monarch 8×42 binoculars.
You may love or hate Walmart, but the work boot section of our local store solved my hard-sole hiking shoe problem (Morita Camp Trail, Power Line Road, etc.) for less than $30.
I like Garmin GPS products. I ended up settling on the Garmin GPS 72 and have been very pleased with its performance. It’s lightweight, waterproof and simple to operate – and all for ~$100.
I’m happy with my Canon Powershot S2IS 5.0 megapixel camera with 12X optical zoom. All the pictures in this section of the website have been taken with this camera.
The sun is very strong in Hawaii, especially at higher elevations. After trying many different sun creams, I’ve come to rely on Neutrogena UVA/UVB Sunblock Lotion spf 45. It’s available at our local Long’s Drugstore.
Also available at Long’s is the Qvs Retractable Blusher Brush for cleaning binocular lenses. It’s ~ $6-7, durable and works well for me.
Rit, a company known for it’s fabric dye, has developed a new product called Sun Guard. Rit Sun Guard is a powder that you simply add to the regular wash cycle. The protection lasts through 20 laundry cycles and changes the UV protection of a T-shirt from SPF 5 to SPF 30! All my cotton long-sleeved shirts that I use for fishing and birding are now washed in this product.