Kauai's Feathered Friends


There are a lot of things that you'll find all over Kaua'i. Rust-colored dirt, the  friendly spirit of Aloha and chickens. Chickens prance around the island like they own it and I guess when you consider their numbers and the centuries they have roamed the island, they sort of do. The scientific name is Polynesian waterfowl and they are prettier and more cocky than your average barnyard birds.


It doesn't matter where you go, to the beach, a luau, a parking lot, you will see chickens. Or at least hear the insistent crowing of the roosters. You are advised not to bother them. After  I witnessed a gaggle of chickens crow and peck each other in a furious fight, flying into the air and landing on backs with sharp claws, I understood why.


Sometimes you'll spot birds that aren't chickens. You have to keep your eyes peeled because the chickens are so plentiful that all other birds seem to just blend in with them.


Except for peacocks.


There's no way peacocks can blend in and they don't seem to want to.  I spotted this beauty at the Smith botanical garden  and it's proud loveliness reminded me of Kaua'i itself.

Comments

MinnieRunner said…
Those roosters are used for cockfighting back in my country.

Oh wow! I wish to see a peacock in person too :D
April 14, 2011 at 7:44 AM
Fly Girl said…
Minnie, It was actually Filipino immigrants that brought many fighting rooster to Kauai over 100 years ago.
April 14, 2011 at 1:30 PM
Angela said…
It must be super sweet just walking around and meeting chickens everywhere. I'm serious here, I loved India so much because anywhere I went animals were free to wander and not afraid of men, feels like more in contact with nature :)
April 16, 2011 at 6:02 PM
Fly Girl said…
Angela, you're right. I never thought of it that way but seeing animals freely roaming is how it should be.
April 16, 2011 at 6:14 PM
Vacation Remix said…
Enjoyed the blog post!
April 16, 2011 at 9:42 PM
Fly Girl said…
Remix, thanks so much! I appreciate you visiting.
April 17, 2011 at 6:47 AM
Mad Bull said…
+Nice pics, remind me of here, except for the pea cock! We have wild chickens aplenty though!
April 17, 2011 at 3:56 PM
Fly Girl said…
Bull, I remember more lizards than chickens on Cayman!
April 17, 2011 at 5:00 PM
Jean-Luc Picard said…
That peacock looks a real poser!
April 18, 2011 at 12:38 PM
Fly Girl said…
Jean-Luc, that's a good one. He is a posing peacock!
April 18, 2011 at 1:29 PM
Fly Girl said…
Rachel. who doesn't love a pretty peacock?
April 18, 2011 at 3:54 PM
Catherine said…
I know next to nothing about Hawaii so have been following all your posts with great interest - the educational beauty of blogs!! hope you managed to verify Obama´s birth records whilst you were down there!! Greetings from Mexico
April 29, 2011 at 8:53 AM
Fly Girl said…
Catherine, they finally have and I really hope that's the end of it. So glad that my posts are giving you new perspectives.
May 1, 2011 at 11:45 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Puerto Rico's Taino Culture

Image
The original inhabitants of the Caribbean region of North America were the Arawak, Taino and Carib  native peoples.  The Tainos are a subgroup of the Arawaks and are recognized as the founders of the island of Boriken or Puerto Rico.  These were the people who offered a peaceful welcome to Columbus in 1493.  They didn't know the cruelty and violence that would follow his so-called "discovery" of the land that they had cultivated for centuries. Despite official government pronouncements that the Taino have been killed off by the massacres and slavery that followed in Columbus' wake, they live on.  As demonstrated in the photo above by  members of  the Puerto Rico Folklorico Dance & Culture Cultural Cente r, Taino traditions, food and names remain strong. Throughout Puerto Rico, town names like Mayaquez, Utuado and Caquas echo the Taino language as do the musical instrument maracas and hamaca or hammock. Legends of Taino warriors, like Hatuey, who organized the ba
Read more

Traveling Through A Liberian Childhood

Image
I like to explore the world with books as much as I like to actually travel. A well-written narrative can transport you to places that you'd never experience with just superficial details like photos and descriptions. I've been interviewing writers about the criteria they use to select books for Summer reading and it made me think about my own general reading criteria. As a journalist, I'm really drawn to biographies, autobiographies and memoirs more than fiction. There's something about using the facts to entice readers into your world that gets me. It's no coincidence that some of my favorite writers--Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Zora Neale Hurston, Hemingway, started out as journalists. So when I glimpsed The House at Sugar Beach , at my local bookstore and saw it was a memoir written by a journalist, it was pretty much a done deal that I would buy it. Now it wasn't only that the author Helene Cooper was a journalist, it was that she was a Liberian journalist chro
Read more

Switzerland's Fete Des Vignerons

Image
                                               Once every generation, the centuries-old viticultural festival, Fete des Vignerons, unfolds in Vevey, Switzerland. Watching this spectacle of music, dancing, wine and fanciful costumes, felt like I had been transported to something out of a Dr. Seuss story. With a law that prohibits the fest from taking place more than five times in a century, I felt incredibly lucky to witness this celebration of Swiss wine traditions dating back to the 17th century.  Some of the fetes 5,500 performers in costumes strolled the narrow streets of Vevey after a show that featured fairies, bees, royal courts, playing cards and 17th-century wine growers. The performance was in French but the drama transcended language barriers. It's a difficult experience to describe but if I had to sum it up, I would explain it as the magic of Cirque Du Soleil combined with the pageantry of the Olympics, topped with the history of folk celebrations.  Take a peek at my v
Read more