Hawaii - a brief ecological history

Mighty volcanoes erupting from the sea created the awe inspiring landscape of the Hawaiian Islands, jagged peaks bathed in lush jungle. On the shoreline white sandy beaches are washed by turquoise seas. The islands seem like a pristine wilderness.
On these rocks birds evolved to form hundreds of different forms based on only one or two species, with different islands or even mountain chains having differing types. These birds evolved in isolation, innocent to what was happening elsewhere in the world. Then man came along. Being isolated the islands had escaped the initial eco-ravages that is so typical of our species. Soon after humans arrived, though, they cut down the lowland forests and introduced pigs, rats and other vermin that fed on eggs and chicks. If the islands hadn't taken enough of a battering along came white ("civilised") man and things got worse. Avian malaria was introduced, which destroyed native bird populations until endemic birds could only survive on altitudes above the height that mosquitoes could survive, in forests that were poor for them.

 

 

The GOLDEN PLOVERS are indigenous to the islands

 



As so very little of the endemic bird life survived, everything you see in Hawaii is introduced. Humanity realising the great mistake they had made in destroying the  endemic birdlife, decided to introduce birds from other areas of the world to fill the void. Of the original birds the last remaining endemics cling onto the slopes in  high mountain forests, some exist only in zoos (the unfortunate Hawaiian Crow), but most have disappeared. Seabirds still cling on in areas, mainly islands, and some waterbirds exist in the few wetlands that are left, but there's not much in accessible areas. All the vegetation in lowland Hawaii is introduced, all the trees, all the butterflies, insects, animals all introduced, if you can envision it its truly mind-blowing.
The strange thing about all these introduced birds is that I have not seen most of them before. They all seem to have originated from either North America or Asia, places I haven't really been to, so all these introduced birds are lifers for me and I treat them the same as any other. Most of the introduced birds are "pretty" birds, birds released because they have nice plumage, so as a result all the introduced birds are very distinctive and easy to tell apart.

The local MOORHENS are a unique subspecies to Hawaii

 



Secondly, the original, endemic bird species on Hawaii, all evolved from just a few species, but humans have introduced thousands more, which will eventually evolve into their own species in time, so you could say humanity has created entire new ecosystems. Birds from Asia rub shoulders with birds from North America, creating a melting pot of many species. This is actually a well known theory and you may want to look up some more abut this, more than I can write about.
One thing about the birds in Hawaii is that they are so tame. I mean really tame. They don't fly away from you, you could just walk over and pick up one of the many ZEBRA DOVES that just hang about. Birds just accept humans as part of the landscape.
Another thing is that though they are introduced there are lots of birds. Unlike the UK which is so habitat depleted, in Hawaii there are lots of trees, even though they are introduced, which in turn attract birds, even though they are introduced.
I hope this makes things clearer about Hawaii's very complex ecology. To really understand even a fraction would take an entire lifetime, something which I can't really dedicate, but there are others who do.
In later blogs when I write about the birds I see on the islands I will add some brackets labelling where the species has been introduced from, just a way of explaining how exotic everything is.