One of the big benefits of living on the West Coast is that Hawaii is a much easier travel destination compared to our friends and family on the East Coast. The plane flight from Seattle to Maui is about the same time in the air as the flight from Seattle to Orlando.

It is still a long flight.

When you land in Maui and start walking through the open air terminal – your spirits start lifting!

We have a timeshare in the Kaanapali region of Maui which is on the northwest side of the island. One of the features which really attracted us to this area of Maui was a nice long (a few miles) paved walking path that meanders along the space between the hotels and the beach area.

When the weather is good – and it almost always is in Maui – we like to take walks in the morning after breakfast to enjoy the morning sunshine and countless others out walking, jogging, or doing yoga seaside.

It is also a nice time for some bird watching.

We have learned to keep our cameras in hand and to be ready to snap a photo of a new bird – as you don’t often have much time to take the “ideal” picture if you hesitate.

We are not expert birders by any means – and would not be able to confidently identify many species without the Merlin Bird ID app which is managed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

If you have never used this app – you can take a picture of any bird and it will provide you with some suggested species – or alternatively you can also utilize the microphone on your cell phone to record bird song and the app will suggest likely species based on bird calls.

Here are some of the most frequent birds we see on our morning walks …

Over the course of our week in Maui we will certainly photograph and identify additional common Hawaiian birds.

As we document and observe more winged friends – I will post another missive with additional bird photos as well as a few other animals that we encounter on our morning walks.

Until then …

Aloha!