Our plan for the rest of the day is to visit two spots near the resort and then return and eat lunch at the resort restaurant as we are expecting to be quite hungry by then. First stop is at Kawai’ele State Waterbird Sanctuary a small waterbird sanctuary that we hope will allow us to see some of the Hawaii endemics. The parking lot is empty and soon we are on our way towards the lakes we see in the distance.
The first bird we see is an out of its element zebra dove which is not what we expected to see in a waterbird sanctuary. Next one is more in line with what we expected, a Hawaiian Stilt, which is skulking through near the edge of the water.
The trail continues between two lakes, both of them with artificial islands which hold Hawaiian Coots another endemic bird we wanted to see.
There aren’t only endemics here, we also see Pacific Golden-Plovers and Ruddy Turnstones which are quite exciting also if you are coming from Arizona.
At the end of the trail we have an overview of the multiple islands with quite a few endemics including a flying Hawaiian Duck, one of the rarities we really hoped to see.
On the way back we add to our list a few more birds, we see a black-crowned Night-Heron flying over us and also finally see multiple Hawaiian Stilts in the open allowing us to take good photos.
We read the info panels along the way and learn that many of the native plants along the trail were planted by volunteers to create a habitat which resembles closely to what the waterbirds were experiencing before the introduction of all the invasive plants.
