Why fly when you can walk?

One of the first things we noticed, here in Kailua, on the seacoast, the birds are a bit more interesting and they have a peculiar behavior pattern.

It seems that no matter what type of bird they are, and I'll try to describe the ones that I can identify, they would rather walk than fly. It's true! Here's a typical siting. You're driving on Kaneohe Bay Drive, a relatively busy thoroughfare, and you spot a couple of brown and black birds( I think they are myna birds) in the road ahead of you. You slow down, they continue meadering across. You slow down some more, after all, you don't want to have myna feathers stuck in the front fender. The birds continue to stroll, heads moving in time to their little yellow feet, yellow beaks leading the way. Eventually, you get so close that they realize they have to do something different. Do they spread their wings? Heck no. They run.

So you may be thinking that perhaps myna birds can't fly. Wrong. They can and I have seen them. But apparently they only fly when it suits them. And they aren't the only walking birds. The egrets walk, too, and so do the pretty little cardinals and even the sparrows. They just walk about their business. Up tree trunks, along limbs, across the street, with traffic, against traffic and on the lawn in front of the Akahi Shopping Center or any other lawn or grassy area around.

Walk, walk , walk, and occasionally they run, if it's really important. Like to catch a feisty bug or, oh yeah, to escape from a car. Flying? Not so much.

Yesterday, DH and I were stopped at a stop sign when an egret came near. Picture a white, yellow-legged bird, about the size of a really skinny turkey and maybe 2 feet tall. We looked at the bird, it looked at us, it flapped its wings and leapt to the roof of the car. We heard the little clicking sound of its landing and then it jumped off the other side. The thing couldn't be bothered to fly all the way over! I was afraid that it might have scratched the roof with either feet or beak, but it seems to have made a perfect landing. For goodness' sake. It could have just waited until we pulled away and walked.