You’ll see them within an hour of landing. A loud brown bird with a yellow eye-patch strutting across the rental-car shuttle parking lot. A small striped dove walking under your beach chair, calmly picking up crumbs. A bird with a flame-red mohawk hopping across a hotel lawn while you eat breakfast.

This Hawaii common birds field guide is for visitors who want to know what those are. Travel guides cover the volcanoes and the snorkel spots. They almost never tell you that the brown myna outside your room originally came from India in 1865, or that the cardinal with the red crest is South American.

Here’s the part that surprises most visitors: most of the birds you notice in lowland Hawaiʻi are introduced, not native. Native Hawaiian forest birds, including the famous ʻiʻiwi and ʻapapane, mostly live above 4,000 feet in remaining native forest, often on Big Island and Maui (per the National Park Service profiles for Haleakalā and Hawaiʻi Volcanoes). What you see down at sea level is mostly a global mishmash of cage-bird escapees and biocontrol experiments, with a small number of genuine natives — mostly seabirds and shorebirds.

This is a visitor’s field guide to what you’ll actually meet. We’ve covered the feral chickens of Kauaʻi in their own post, so they don’t get a section here. The common lowland birds do.

If you stand outside any airport or hotel in Hawaiʻi for ten minutes, the first wild bird you see will probably be a common myna. It’s medium-sized and glossy chocolate-brown, with a black head, a bright yellow patch of bare skin around the eye, and yellow legs. It walks with a confident stomp. It is loud and unbothered by humans.

Common mynas (Acridotheres tristis) are not native. They were imported from India to Oʻahu in 1865 by the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association to control armyworms eating the cane fields (Hawaiʻi DLNR invasive species profile; Cornell Lab). They worked well as biocontrol and immediately got loose. They did not stop. They now occupy every island in the chain.

Mynas live in flocks and roost noisily in trees at dusk. During the nonbreeding season their communal roosts can number in the thousands, per the Cornell Lab life history account. They are members of the starling family (Sturnidae), and like other starlings they’re quick learners and excellent mimics. The hotel-walkway myna that’s been watching you eat breakfast is paying close attention.

The small dove walking calmly under your beach chair, picking at crumbs, is almost certainly a zebra dove (Geopelia striata). It’s about the size of a robin, fawn-pink-gray, with the front of its breast finely barred in black and white. That’s the “zebra” part. It walks much more than it flies. Its call is a soft, repetitive cooing.

Zebra doves are native to Southeast Asia and were introduced to Oʻahu around 1922, per the Cornell Lab. They settled into the islands easily and now occupy every developed area at low elevation. They often tolerate people at very close range, and routinely walk between human feet at outdoor restaurants without flushing.

You’ll often see zebra doves alongside their larger cousin, the spotted dove (Spilopelia chinensis). The spotted dove is darker, chestnut-brown, with a distinctive black-and-white speckled patch on the back of the neck. Spotted doves were introduced from southern Asia in the late 1800s (Hawaiʻi DLNR profile). The two species share the same lawns and don’t appear to bother each other.

Etiquette note: don’t feed either dove. Honolulu’s Department of Parks and Recreation rules prohibit feeding any animal in city parks, and the broader principle applies elsewhere. Habituated birds become bolder, then become someone else’s problem.

If you see a striking bird that’s clean white below, gray above, with a brilliant flame-red head and a tall pointed crest, that’s a red-crested cardinal (Paroaria coronata). It hops around hotel grounds and beach park lawns and looks more like an exotic cage bird than a wild one. That’s because it basically is.

Red-crested cardinals are native to southern South America. They were introduced to Hawaiʻi around 1928, almost certainly as escaped or released cage birds (Cornell Lab). They settled in and now occupy lowland habitat across all the main islands. They are particularly visible on Oʻahu and Maui resort grounds.

A different red-headed bird you may also see is the northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis), the deep-red-all-over cardinal familiar to anyone from the eastern United States. Northern cardinals were introduced to Oʻahu in 1929, with subsequent releases on other islands through 1931, again as cage birds, per the Bishop Museum’s species account. The two cardinals are easy to tell apart. Northern cardinal males are entirely red and females are warm tan-brown, while red-crested cardinals always have the gray-and-white body with just the head and crest in red.

A finch-sized bird that looks dipped in egg yolk, bright yellow with a slight orange wash on the head, is a saffron finch (Sicalis flaveola). They’re shockingly bright in good sun. You’ll see them on lawns and grassy edges, often in small flocks. Females are duller olive-yellow.

Saffron finches are South American and were first noted on Oʻahu in 1965, established from escaped cage birds, per the Bishop Museum’s species account. They’ve since spread to all the main islands at low elevation.

The other small finch you may see in flocks on lawns is the common waxbill (Estrilda astrild), a tiny brown bird with a bright red beak and a red mask running through the eye. Waxbills are African and were established on Oʻahu by 1970 from escaped cage birds, with flocks of more than 100 birds reported by that year (Bishop Museum account). They move in coordinated flocks, often pumping their tails up and down as they perch on grass stems.

Most native Hawaiian birds, including the Hawaiian honeycreepers like the ʻiʻiwi (scarlet, with a long curved bill) and the ʻapapane (deep crimson), live high in remaining native forest. To see them you generally need to be hiking inside Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park or Haleakalā National Park, or at specific places like Hosmer Grove on Maui or Hakalau Forest on Big Island. They’re not casual airport-parking-lot encounters. Our native Hawaiian birds guide goes deeper on those.

But there are several genuine natives that visitors can absolutely see in the kinds of accessible places you’re already going — some at sea level on lawns and shorelines, others up in the national parks. You should know them when you see them.

Nene (Hawaiian Goose)

Nene (Branta sandvicensis) is the Hawaiian goose and Hawaiʻi’s state bird. They look like Canada geese with the contrast turned down: medium-sized, grayish-brown, with a black head and buff cheeks lined with delicate dark furrows down the neck. They are federally listed as threatened, downlisted from endangered in December 2019 by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The population is recovering after intensive reintroduction work.

Where to see them: nene aren’t a sea-level bird for most visitors. The best places are upland — Haleakalā National Park on Maui and Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park on Big Island. On Kauaʻi they show up at lower elevation around Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge and Kīlauea Point. They are protected under both federal and state law (Hawaiʻi DLNR Nene Q&A). Do not approach. Do not feed. Do not honk at them on Haleakalā Highway. They are slow walkers and confident pedestrians, and they’ve earned the right.

Pacific Golden Plover (Kōlea)

Pacific golden plover (kōlea, Pluvialis fulva) is a medium shorebird with a hunched, watchful posture. You’ll see them on lawns and golf courses from August through April. They migrate every year between Alaska, where they breed, and Hawaiʻi, where they winter (Hawaiʻi Audubon via PacIOOS).

Kōlea depart Hawaiʻi each year in late April or early May for the Alaskan breeding grounds, per the same Hawaiʻi Audubon project, so May visitors are catching the last of them. They have a reputation for returning to the same yard year after year, which is why local birders get attached to “their” kōlea.

White Tern (Manu-o-Kū)

White tern (manu-o-Kū, Gygis alba) is a pure-white seabird with large dark eyes that you’ll see flying over Honolulu, including downtown and Waikīkī. They are real natives, they nest in the city’s trees, and they were designated the official bird of the City and County of Honolulu in 2007.

What’s wild about them is they don’t build a nest. The female lays a single egg directly on a bare branch, in a fork, or on a ledge, per the Cornell Lab life history account. The volunteer-run Hui Manu-o-Kū tracks Honolulu’s nesting trees. If you see a white seabird gliding above Beretania Street, you have just been graced.

Black-Crowned Night Heron (ʻAukuʻu)

Black-crowned night heron (ʻaukuʻu, Nycticorax nycticorax) is a stocky gray-and-black wading bird with red eyes. You’ll see them standing motionless at the edge of any wetland or golf course pond, often near taro patches as well.

The Hawaiian population is the same species as the cosmopolitan night heron found around the world, but it is indigenous and self-arrived (long before humans) rather than introduced (Bishop Museum species account). For Hawaiian families, the ʻaukuʻu is also a kinolau — a body form — of certain ʻaumakua, or ancestral guardians (Maui Nui News). The motionless heron at the edge of the pond has been here a long time.