One of the questions we get asked nearly everyday is this: “Do you have any books about Kauai birds?”
And do we!
There are a few titles that we carry which deal with the birds of the Hawaiian Islands.
Most, however, are generally “pocket” guides, smaller in size, with pictures that often are also reduced in scale, making the details of a particular bird of interest harder to see.
So, we are very fortunate that Kauai resident and photographer Jim Denny created a field guide specific to our flighted fauna of the Garden Island, entitled “The Birds of Kauai.”
In its comparably larger format, what makes “The Birds of Kauai” so useful is its layout and presentation. Each individual bird has at least an entire page devoted to it, accompanied with Denny’s high-quality photographs, which give the reader a large, colorful image for easy identification. Also included for each bird is an explanation of where to find them, and information of their origin or when they were introduced to the island.
Futhermore, his introdution to the subject of Kauai’s birds is really rather interesting, giving us a deeper context to these colorful winged creatures we find ourselves fascinated with.
Overall, it is perhaps the easiest field guide to use we have yet seen!
For those who might already be aware of “The Birds of Kauai” and/or Jim Denny, you may not be aware that he also created another book on all Hawaiian birds, titled “A Photographic Guide to the Birds of Hawaii,” as well as an excellent film featuring high-definition video of each bird on Kauai, showing them in their natural environment, as well as the songs and sounds each that them make (wonderfully accompanied by soothing slack-key guitar melodies as played by Paul Togioka and Hal Kinnaman).
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Ed Justus is owner of the Talk Story Bookstore in Hanapepe. Ed and Yuriko Justus are residents of Kalaheo.
