Day 303 of 2007 62 days left in this year Liver Awareness Month

 HAWAIIAN WORD OF THE DAY -  MANU: Bird
HAWAIIAN PROVERB OF THE DAY - “The bird of the day reaps its reward.”

  October 30, 1933: The Hui Manu — a Honolulu-based organization that was formed to devote its efforts to introducing songbirds to the Hawaiian Islands — releases Mockingbirds on Maui, because, evidently, Maui doesn’t have enough birds which sing prettily. (Mockingbirds are members of the Mimidae family, with  about 17 species in three genera.)

According to Robin Doughty in The Mockingbird: “Native birds, already buffeted by logging, agriculture (cane) and settlement, have had to cope with [introduced] alien species…. Since 1796, 170 bird species have been introduced to Hawaii, and many have succeeded in displacing endemic species.”

There is no log of what native Hawaiian birds have been lost to history due to these introductions. But, by golly, those Mockingbirds have done very well here, huh?

From the Yardener’s Advisor: “Mockingbirds are renown for their ability to mimic the songs of other songbirds. They serenade the neighborhood for hours in the spring and summer, often at night by the light of a full moon or nearby street light, probably because of the hormonal changes that accompany mating and nesting during this time. Mockingbirds can master 180 calls and more than 400 song types in a few months. Their own call is a musical burble punctuated with an occasional harsh tone.”