Check out Hawai'i Magazine's article titled 8 Things you Need to Know about Honolulu's White Fairy Tern. Mahalo Kevin Allen for featuring White Terns and the Hui Manu-o-Ku!

Monkeypod. Shower. Kukui. These are the three species of trees that white terns nesting on Oahu pick most often for breeding purposes. And these are the trees that most White Tern Walks have focused on. This monthʻs White Tern Walk will feature terns that are taking advantage of the incredible variety of trees available to them for nesting at the amazing arboretum that is the UH Manoa campus. In addition to the usual monkeypod, shower and kukui, youʻll see terns nesting in a wild chataigne, a baleric myrobalan and other exotic species of trees - something you can only see at UH Manoa!

Join us on Saturday, April 20, for this special Terns and Trees Guided Tour at the UH Manoa. Weʻll meet in front of the Sinclair Library at 0900 for this walk, sponsored by the UH Campus Arboretum, Hawaii Audobon Society and the Hui Manu o Ku.

Aloha White Tern Photographers!

The fourth annual Manu o Ku Festival is being held at the Iolani Palace on Saturday May 18, 2019 and will again feature a White Tern Digital Photo Exhibit. Submissions are now being accepted for the exhibit that are taken of white terns here on Oahu. Submission to the exhibit is open to everyone, free of charge! All you need to do is email your photos to [email protected] with whatever descriptions you’d like posted with the photos. You’ll get photo credit for your submission and our promise that we won’t further distribute or reuse your photos without your permission. 

The purpose of the photo exhibit is to share with festival goers what many of us have been fortunate to see and photograph. This year we’ve created a number of categories for your submissions and you are invited to submit up to five photos for each category. The categories are:
- Terns and Fish: White terns carrying fish and feeding their chicks. These photos will also support Sarah Donahue’s research on white tern diet.
- Terns and Blossoms: Terns perched or flying amongst tree blossoms
- Terns as Art: “Artistic” images of terns captured with a camera (with or without post-processing effects applied) or that are drawn or painted (and then photographed for submission to the exhibit). Let your creative juices flow!
- Terns just being terns: Terns flying, nesting, preening, sleeping, interacting with chicks, etc.

Photos taken with any type of camera are welcome. As they say, “The best camera is the one you have with you.” And sometimes the camera in our pocket is the only one we have when we see the terns doing something interesting. Don’t feel as though your photos aren’t worthy of submission because you didn’t use a big camera with a huge lens. If you like the photo you took with your cell phone we want to give you a chance to share it with others!

Some tern behaviors are best captured in video and so there will also be a category for short videos of terns. It’s requested that you keep videos to a maximum of 60 seconds in length. 

The new breeding season is underway and trees around greater Honolulu are full of nesting terns and their chicks. Now’s the time to grab your camera and get some shots. Check out the nest map on the Hui Manu o Ku webpage at for the location of known nests that are currently active. The deadline for submissions is May 11, 2019. 

We're offering an “app” to make it easier for you to find nesting spots that are particularly good for photographing the terns. The app uses Google Earth installed on your smartphone or tablet to show you the locations of trees with nesting spots that are low in the tree and visually more accessible. Clicking the pin marking the location of the tree on the map will display a photo showing you where to look in the tree to find the nesting spot. Send an email to  [email protected] to request the app.

Thanks in advance for your participation in the 4th Annual Manu o Ku Festival’s digital photo exhibit.

A hui hou!