A flock of endemic bird mugs

I made a goal for myself this year to do more markets, which means I’ve been ending up making lots of bird mugs, as people seem to like them more than I expected!

I started off with some featuring 'i’iwi, just because this scarlet honeycreeper is vibrant and kind of the poster child of endangered forest birds in Hawai’i.

Then I began branching out to other species, including some extinct birds that I personally think are really neat, but it turns out people really love the 'i’iwi so I’ve started pairing other birds with a little 'i’iwi friend on the other side, to aid in my personal quest of getting more bird species out there!

Here are some of them! (But I’m not going to tell which ones are still around or extinct)

'i’iwi (pronounced like “ee-ee-vee”):

this one is the O’ahu 'ō’ō (“oh oh”)

O’ahu Nukupu’u (“noo koo poo ooo”):

(an interpretation of māmane flowers on this one):

'amakihi (“ah mah kee hee”)

a different c h o n k y 'amakihi

a couple O’ahu ‘Elepaio (“el leh pie oh”)

And then I also started adding in some of the seabirds/water fowl, like nēnē, our native goose. (“nay nay” ish)

I admit it took me a while to start using these birds because they aren’t as colorful as a lot of the forest birds. So I had the idea of pairing them with rainbows, so this nēnē family got one! (Rainbow is “Anuenue”- sounds like “ah noo ay noo ay”)

And I love the manu o kū, so I finally played around with this (mostly) white bird and they got rainbows too!

Thanks for looking! (and thanks for the nudge to post, @gozer !)

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Each one is it’s own gorgeous art piece. I can see why they’re so popular. I love hand crafted pottery and these are everything I adore. So much personality in each!

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These are so amazingly beautiful! I love all of them the birds are so detailed. You did a fantastic job capturing their essence.

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These are beautiful… no wonder they’re so popular! Thank you for providing the pronunciations of the different birds, too!

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Beautiful work. I love the chonky bird and the added rainbows!

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Each and everyone of these is wonderful!
Thanks for also sharing information about the different birds, it’s so cool to learn about the wildlife in different parts of the world.

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How could anyone pick just one!? I love the carving and colors, but also the feet and handles are so… well, lyrical.

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