Feral chickens in Maui

[Afterburner]

I just came from a wonderful vacation in Maui. Strangely, there are feral chickens running around the island. Some of them are in very unlikely places. I found them in trees next to our hotel room along the beach, in the McDonald's parking lot and even at the bottle recylcing transfer station. Anybody know what breed these are? I am guessing jungle fowl or Welsummers,




This the fine gentle and his lady were sleeping in the trees next to my hotel room. During the wandered the parking lot.




Here is a view of him going for morning stroll. As you can see, during the day, he is often away from his lady for an hour at a time. He also enjoyed begging for food on the beach in between his bouts of crowing.

 

[ramirezframing]

either jungle fowl or game birds, willies have yellow legs

 

[DavidKerk]

Maybe Old English Game?

 

[Kev]

Hey Maui! What part did you stay in? Last time we chose hotel in Kaanapali area.

There's feral chickens on all of the islands. Kauai has the most though, been said it's because mongooses never got introduced to Kauai so the chickens don't have the vicious beasties to deal with.

They're ferals, which means they are breeding freely. impossible to keep pure breds in such a situation unless it's extreme case of super isolated with only one breed introduced. Ferals if left alone tend to 'revert' to something looking those chickens, not so big but not so small. Sort of like a heavier verison slightly bigger verisons of red junglefowl.

I did notice some general differences in areas, like some areas to me looked like they had very strong american game influence- bigger, longer legged with long full tails. Some areas looked more 'domestic'-- shorter legged, heavier, more upright medium tails.

Did you get to see the feral/free roaming? peafowl on road to Hana?

 

[Afterburner]

Kev:

We stayed at the Days Inn in the southern part of Kihei. The pictures above were from that hotel's parking lot and common area. I also saw several black feather roosters of the same size as the one above. They spent a lot of time begging and being fed from the tourists near the beach. We also spent a day in Lahania but didn't see any chickens there. While driving to Haleakala Volcano, I saw colored roosters darting across residential yards at the base of the volcano.

Yes, I saw Peacocks at Hana. they were too far away to photograph, but the peafowl's crow is quite distinctive. I even saw a massive black shape, which was a rooster darting alongside the roadway.