One would think we would be surrounded by flocks of tropical birds. Sea birds should abound here. But in reality we see only a few sparrow-like birds picking up picnic droppings off the beach and really, little else. A sighting is rare. Sitting out on the back deck here in the town of Waimea, we're surrounded by tropical plants and trees, yet we see far fewer birds than in our snow-covered cedar hedges in Aurora.
What went wrong?
Most of the mammals on the island of Hawaii are feral species; they are not native.
One, the seemingly innocent Indian Mongoose, is as prevalent here as the black squirrel is in Toronto's High Park.
In 1872, W.B. Espeut, a sugar plantation owner in Jamaica, got the idea to introduce the mongoose there in order to keep his rat problem under control. 
He sailed from Jamaica to Calcutta on a ship aptly called the Merchantman, captured four male and five female mongooses and brought them back across the ocean to Jamaica.
Twenty years later, in a journal article, the enterprising Espeut claimed he was very successful, thereby creating a new Jamaican export for himself. Selling mongooses! When the article reached the sugar cane plantations of Hawaii, the farmers saw an answer to their rat problems. So despite some local dissent, in 1883, the Hawaiian farmers ordered 72 mongooses from the Jamaican. The mongooses were raised on the Big Island and spread amongst the islands. Little did they know or maybe, even worse, they didn't care...
Imagine, He Lied.
Contrary to Mr. Espeut's claims, Mongooses kill very few rats. Unlike the nocturnal rat, the mongoose is diurnal; they are active during the day! And you can't eat what you don't see. So instead of ridding the islands of night-time rats, the day-time mongooses have found many alternative foodstuff. Only the islands of Lana'i and Kaua'i remained mongoose-free, but on the other islands, the introduction of the little creature has been a disaster of epic proportions.
Over Easy or Scrambled?
Among many other delicacies, they loved the plentiful bounty of the local bird eggs. Mongooses love eggs. They throw the eggs against rocks to break them open and then eat them. The mongooses have preyed on not just the eggs but also fledgling and adult native Hawaiian birds, not to mention endangered sea turtle eggs and hatchlings. Within decades the bird population of the Big Island, Oahu, and Maui were devastated. Of course, other human causes such as logging and farming caused loss of habitat and diseases introduced to the islands have also played a part.
Endangered Species
The Hawaiian 
Islands can be called the endangered species capital of the world - Hawaii has more native endangered species per square mile than anywhere else on the planet. Of the 71 native bird species, 23 are extinct, and 30 are endangered or threatened. The native state bird, the Nene, (an obvious cousin of the Canada goose) had it's population devastated and reduced to about 30 birds on the big Island at one time. Their population has now been protected, reintroduced, and grown but only in significant numbers on the mongoose-free islands.
If one wants to see flocks of tropical birds, you have to head to the island of Kauai where, I am told, the difference is staggering.
Most birds are Ha'ole, like us
The colourful Brazilian red breasted cardinal which can be seen in various areas 
around the island is a 1930's introduction and although interesting, like so many of the other recent additions, is not native to Hawai'i.
More species of birds have been introduced here than anywhere else on earth - at least 142 species of birds, from six continents since 1850, many to replace the devastated native populations. Around 54 of these introduced species have established breeding populations on the islands. But they survive only in small numbers and even then mostly only in secluded, little publicized, bird sanctuaries around the islands.
[if you want to send me an e-mail, click here ]
4 minutes, it is the most southernly point in the United States. And it looks it. A stark, raw wilderness, desolate and foreboding, a place where the only visitor is the wind. (I stole that from Ken Follett). 
Also incredible that the surfer dudes snorkel here and spear fish. There were four guys and they had a big, four foot long fish they were putting on ice. "How do they get down there?", I asked. They jump. THEY JUMP! Then they do their reef fishin
g - the blond guy said after he skewered his fish he came out quickly because he saw four sharks. And he doesn't like sharks. He jumps 100 feet into rocky pounding surf and he's worried about sharks? 
So then I asked, "How do they come back up?" - there's a ladder and there are pulley systems hanging over the edge to bring people and their small boats back up. Amazing.
eeping rottweiler there were two more sedate fisher guys sitting in chairs with their lines a couple of hundred feet out in the bay. 
