In Hawaiʻi, you have the opportunity to see a multitude of beautiful birds, ranging from the honeycreepers that dot our forests to the sandpipers along our shores, and even the seabirds that make their home in the heart of our cities!
There's also a ton of chickens.
The islands, and Kauaʻi in particular, host thousands of feral chickens. Legend has it that they flew the coop during Hurricane Iwa and Hurricane Iniki, and have been free-ranged ever since. But Hawaiʻi has had its own version of this barnyard bird for almost a millennium — the moa, or red junglefowl.
Polynesian voyagers brought over moa, making them the first bird introduced to Hawaiʻi by humans. And there are still a few strutting around, close to a thousand years later.
Common chickens were likely domesticated from moa around 8,000 years ago. While both are present in Hawaiʻi, they've interbred to the point where it can be hard to tell them apart. There are a few tricks, however.
Moa are smaller than chickens, and they have a distinctive red, black, and green color pattern in their plumage. If you listen very closely, you can hear slight differences in their crows. Hear them both on today's Manu Minute.
Audio credit: Peter Boesman/Macaulay Library at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology (ML285039)
Audio credit: K. W. Worden/Macaulay Library at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology (ML2669)
