The Red Jungle Foul or Moa can be found all over the Island of Kauai. It was the first bird brought here by the ancient Polynesians that inhabited these islands long before Captain Cook stumbled upon them. Today, there are two species of chicken or jungle foul that are abundant on Kauai. The actual Red Jungle Foul is found in the upland forests and meadows and is often confused with its lowland cousin, the domestic chicken.

Female wild lowland chicken

Male lowland chicken

We’ve been watching and hearing the wild, domestic chicken today. Their colors are varied and quite beautiful, probably due to interbreeding with the Red Jungle Foul. The females are often brown and white and have such large, flat and horizontal tails that sometimes it’s difficult to determine which end of the bird you are looking at! Most of the males seem to have brown and black bodies with long black tail feathers that swish when they walk. One of the males we just saw had a big beautiful showy white tail and seemed to be pretty popular with the gals around him.

The strangest part of watching these birds is seeing them on the beach. In upstate New York, you often see chickens in people’s yards, pecking around for bugs. These birds are providing eggs for their owners or fattening up to become a meal. The owners keep them close to home by feeding them and providing a safe home at night. To see this same bird wild and on the beach is a real treat. These birds are acting as they have for presumably thousands of years, before they became domesticated. They have very few, if any predators here on Kauai and can live in peace.