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The White Terns of Oahu have been busy courting and laying eggs. As a result there are now over 300 eggs and chicks in trees scattered across the greater Honolulu area. Some of them are located in the heart of Waikiki and offer exceptional opportunities to see our White Terns doing what they do here and nowhere else in the Pacific - nesting in an urban environment. Join us on Sunday, February 11, as we visit a few of the nesting spots along Kalakaua Avenue. We’ll meet at 10:00 under the big Monkeypod tree in the center of this picture at the intersection of Kalakaua and Saratoga Road. The walk will end at the International Marketplace at about 11:30. Please RSVP by texting 808-379-7555 or by emailing [email protected].  The Hui Manu-o-Ku will be participating in the LICH Conference at the Neal Blaisdell Exhibition Hall on October 5. This event is the perfect outreach opportunity for the Hui to talk with arborists and tree trimmers about how they can help White Terns and give them advice on how to work around nesting terns. Part of the Hui's outreach will include the distribution of the cards you see below to help tree trimmers avoid disrupting active White Tern nests. The cards will also be used at other public outreach events in the city in the future.   The Hui Manu o Ku was featured in a March 28th news story on KHON 2 about a nesting pair of White Terns. The egg is carefully balanced on a lanai railing at the Hawaii State Art Museum at the Capital District Building. This building was scheduled for renovation, but this protected bird will delay that project. Since White Terns are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and because they are listed as "threatened" by the State of Hawaii, it is illegal to disturb or harass these birds. That means the construction work will be delayed until the egg hatches and the chick is able to fly and leave the nest, which may take several months. Kudos to the Art Museum management and the Hawaiian state government for adjusting the schedule for the project to accommodate the nesting needs of a pair of white terns. That’s real Aloha in action! If you missed the news piece, you can read the article here.
The Hui Manu-o-Kū is hosting two upcoming training sessions. These training sessions serve as an introduction to the Manu-o-Kū citizen science project. To learn more about this project, please visit www.whiteterns.org/citizenscience. At this training session, we will discuss the fun process of collecting data about White Tern breeding activities, including what to look for, how to input data and much more.
The two upcoming training sessions are scheduled for December 17th and January 7 from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm. If you're interested in attending or would like more information, please send us an email at [email protected]. The Hui Manu-o-Kū was recently featured in the "Ocean Watch" column of the September 24th edition of the Honolulu Star Advertiser! Thank you Susan Scott for an excellent article and for helping us spread the word about our Hui and Honolulu's White Terns!
For an online version of Oahu Hui Works to Protect Urban-Dwelling White Terns, click here. |