This infrequent visitor from North America sports a distinct color pattern from which its name is derived. Males appear with a deep chestnut-red head and neck, black chest and rump, a canvas-white wings, back, and belly, and bright red eyes. Females have a light brown head and neck, darker brown chest, gray-brown back and wings, ...
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A dabbling duck, gadwalls typically feed by tipping forward to reach underwater for plants. However, they are also known to steal food from coots or other diving birds. This medium-sized gray duck is an infrequent winter visitor in Hawaii. Males are predominately gray with a black rump and a small white wing patch in flight. ...
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This visiting ibis has a glossy dark body with reddish neck, head, and chest. Its bill is long and curved with a white transition between bill and face stretching around the eye from which it gets its name. Their native range is typically North and South America.
An all-white goose with an orange-pink bill and legs, and black wing tips especially visible in flight. A visitor to Hawai’i from North America in winter months.
Sharp-tailed sandpipers are visually very similar to the pectoral sandpiper but can be distinguished by having more red on the head cap and less defined transition of strips between the chest and belly.
The pectoral sandpiper is a visiting species from the Americas to the Hawaiian Islands, usually arriving in fall and sometimes overwintering. It’s sturdy build, yellowish legs, and thin contrasted streaks of chest feathers ending sharply at the belly can distinguish it from the least sandpiper.
This small visiting duck from North and Central America is found in ponds and marshes feeding on surface plants. As their name suggests, blue-winged teals have blue wing feathers visible when in flight. Males have a white facial crescent, faintly visible on females, and dark colored bodies. Both sexes have black bills.
Female ring-necked ducks have dark bodies with a white ring around their eyes, while males are black and white with a faint ring around their lower neck. Ring-neck ducks are diving ducks that prefer smaller bodies of water. They are visitors to Hawaiʻi from North America
Minutilla, meaning “very small” is an appropriate Latin name for the least sandpiper. This winter visitor may be difficult to distinguish from other small shorebirds, but is generally smaller, with short yellow legs and a black beak that is slightly curved downward at the tip.
This coastal gull is known for its distinctive laughing call. Laughing gulls have recognizable sharply defined black hoods and red beaks during summer months which is lost to greyish plumage and black beaks in the winter, when they are seen in Hawai’i visiting.
Green-winged Teals are small ducks and visitors to Hawai’i. Males and females in non breeding plumage have brown mottled bodies. Males have chestnut brown heads with green iridescent eye masks and acquire elaborate grey, black, and white bodies during the breeding season.
This visitor from the continents of the Norther Hemisphere is a medium sized diving duck with yellow eyes. Males have rounded, dark heads with light blue bills and grey, white and black bodies. Females have dark heads with white near the beak and brown bodies.
Visiting buffleheads from North America are active divers. Males are black and white and have iridescent green and purple heads with large distinguished white patches behind the eye wrapping around the back of the head. Females are brown with small white patches behind the eyes. Both sexes are small, but have what could be described ...
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This visiting, medium-sized duck is found in open marshes and wetlands. Both sexes have round heads with short necks and light blue bills. Males in the breeding season disply a green eye mask and white head cap. Females and non-breeding males are brown. The American wigeon is a highly vocal species. It is often be ...
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If you’re lucky, you may spot a Canada goose floating in a pond enjoying its winter vacation. These large geese can be two to three feet in size, characterized by their brown body and long black neck and head with white throat. A diverse species of goose, many forms have been spotted in Hawaiʻi.