Hunakai in Flight
Sanderling, Calidris alba
Ehukai Beach Park, North Shore, O'ahu, Hawai'i

From the State of Hawaii DLNR: The hunakai, or sanderling, is a sandpiper (Family: Scolopacidae) which is well-known for its habit of foraging at the edge of the surf zone and running up and down the beach to avoid waves while probing the sand for invertebrates. Hunakai are small, plump sandpipers, usually about 19 centimeters (7.5 inches) in length, with bills that are short, straight, and black. Their legs and feet are also black, but the rest of their body is white about the head, pale-gray on the back and ventrally white. Hunakai winter in the Hawaiian Islands, arriving by October and departing for breeding areas in the Arctic Circle by June, with juvenile birds tending to migrate later than adults. Hunakai diet changes markedly with the season, consisting almost exclusively of insects during the breeding season, and consisting of hippid crabs, isopods (Excirolana spp.), insects, talitrid amphipods, polychaete worms, and small bivalve mollusks in winter. Hunakai of both sexes are strongly territorial in and above the intertidal zone, but otherwise forage in non-territorial flocks.

For more information: https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/wildlife/files/2013/09/Fact-Sheet-Sanderling.pdf