So ... my travels took me through three distant places that have very different relationships to endemic birds. Australia, it seems, has many, and it's fairly easy to come across at least some of them simply by walking in parks. New Zealand has a smaller proportion of endemics, many of which can only be seen by taking paid tours in private reserves or going out on pelagics. Hawaii has very few left of its endemics. To see them you mostly have to get high up on steep volcanoes. Nevertheless, Hawaii does "sell" itself as a birding location, but in a rather unusual way: They claim to be one of the few places in the world where you can encounter birds from almost all the continents. In other words, they also brag on their introduced species. Except for one fellow I encountered on my last day on Hawaii, who scornfully referred to the non-endemics as "dickie-birds".
Anyhoooo ... I didn't see many endemics this trip. I did hear some Amakihi at the peak of my last day's hike, but didn't see them. The one endemic species I did see was these Hawaii Coots. They used to be considered a sub-species of American Coots, but have now been split off. Hawaii Coots don't have the dark bits on their beak tips that the American ones have, and they have variable shield colors - some all white, some red, some yellowish. I only got two distant shots of them, and partly hidden by a White-faced Ibis. However, I think all three shield colors are represented here - red on the left, white in the middle, and a hint of yellow on the rightmost one. Oh, and a park ranger here thought this was a Glossy Ibis, but eBird corrected me on that one.
