Friday 2/23/2024
After a 50 minute flight from Kauai, we grabbed a rental car and headed to the Royal Kona resort. You remember this hotel from last October. We had a beautiful room on the ground floor, with a private patio at the ocean’s edge. Directly next to the low patio wall was volcanic cinder, sharp and rough. We were now on the west side of the island and would not be viewing the beautiful sunrises we saw on Kauai. But the clouds were still colored at sunrise.
Saturday, 2/24/ 2024
The pelagic birding trip had been cancelled because too few people had signed up. We were offered a whale watching trip, but after the snorkeling experience we declined. This gave us the day to visit Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. It was a two hour drive from the hotel so we arrived around mid day.
The vastness of the volcanoes is difficult to comprehend from the ground. The sign that Little Pig was reading gives some idea of the scale. It was overcast, chilly and windy, unlike the tropical climate we enjoyed at the coast. We didn’t hike into the craters to see the steam vents. We were more interested in hiking through the Ohia Forest, on the east slope of the volcano. The east slope was completely different climate and habitat than the west side of the park. It was the rainy side, thick with lush vegetation. The trail was a steep descent, starting with a staircase that led down through giant ferns and tall trees. As it was raining on and off the trail had some slippery mud in places. It was a popular trail so we had a lot of hikers moving past us as we took our time birding. The Ohia tree is the favorite of the honey creepers. We could hear them above us, singing loudly. We finally got a visual and identified them as Apapane, the red, white and black bird that is most resistant to mosquito-borne diseases. They were everywhere. We counted fifty but I’m sure there were more. The only other interesting bird was a Hawaii Amakihi, also a honey creeper.
The foliage was dense and the birds were at the tops of the trees feeding on the blossoms so we didn’t get photos, however, we got well acquainted with their song. We hiked back up the mountainside and headed back to the hotel. We ate at the resort restaurant, seated within view of the ocean. It was breezy but not as wet as the rain forest.
Sunday 2/25/2024
We woke early and looked outside to see a beautiful moon set.
After relaxing in the room we had breakfast at the restaurant. I finally had an Aćai Bowl. It was so smooth and creamy, with lots of fruit on top and a dab of poi. While we were eating the waitresses were all gathered together and sounded very excited about something. Finally we realized that there were hump-backed whales visible from where we were sitting. They were very active, breaching and tail-slapping. It was a real show, with no boat ride needed!
After breakfast we explored the jagged lava that made up the shoreline. There were small dark crabs clinging to the rocks. One larger crab was busy eating a smaller gray crab. We walked to the hotel’s Salt Water Lagoon. There was a small sandy beach area set back from the rocky shore. The sea water washed in through the rocks and made a quiet lagoon for swimmers and snorkelers who preferred a natural setting over the sterile pool of the hotel. There was a lot of activity out in the bay. There were long, narrow canoes with multiple rowers, some appeared to be racing. There were fishing boats and snorkeling tours and probably whale watching tours.
Later, we went to Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park. The park is the site of ancient fish ponds built to trap fish from the ocean. This was also a site where fresh water was available to the ancient peoples. The landscape is eerie, with jagged lava cinders covering most of the area. At one point on the trail are there are even some petroglyphs. Only Hawaiian Natives are allowed access to the ponds from the main trail so we continued to walk around to the shoreline.
The first part of the shoreline is an ancient lava flow. The crevices were filled with tiny fish and sea creatures. In the deeper spots there were sea urchins. But the stars of the show were the giant sea turtles. They crawl up onto the rocks and beach to sit in the sun. They were very impressive in spite of remaining motionless. A long beach lay beyond the rocky shore. The sand on the beaches here is a very coarse sand that hurts your feet if you walk barefoot (at least it does with a fresh pedicure). From the dune behind the beach you could get a closer look at the pond. We saw a variety of shorebirds and waterfowl, some of them Hawaiian versions of our regular Midwest species.
We drove back south to find dinner and spend our last night at the Royal Kona Hotel. We had to get organized and packed up because early Monday morning we had to meet our guide, Lance Tanino to visit the Hakalau Forest-the epicenter for honey creepers!
Monday 2/26/2024
We got an early start. Travel time to the meeting place was 1 hour and 15 minutes and we did not want to be late. Joining us on the tour was a younger couple. Five pairs of eyes! As the guide warned us, it would be cold and rainy in the cloud forest. I wore most of the long sleeve things I brought and did not regret it. Dad had rain pants in addition to his raincoat. My ancient raincoat, which spent most of it’s long life rolled up, started shedding it’s inner lining, getting tiny white flecks everywhere. But it managed to keep the most of the rain out. The rain was a constant fine mist with intermittent showers. We had our cameras with us so trying to keep them dry was a distraction. This hike took all day. At lunch time we stopped at a shack that in previous years had been used by researchers. It was old and dusty and decorated with Hawaiian Goose droppings but it was a place to eat our Bento boxes out of the rain.
The rain seemed to keep the birds down. We saw some of the target birds, but not all of them and some did not give good looks at all. The Apapane was easy to hear and see, probably the most abundant of Honey Creepers. We got glimpses of Hawaii Elepaio, Akiapolaau, and Hawaiian Creeper. Due to the circumstances, Dad did not get a good look at the poster bird, the I’iwi. At about 2:00 we hiked back to the entrance, wet and tired. After Lance took us back to our cars we followed him on a brief driving tour and saw the Hawaiian Short-eared Owl over some grassy fields. It looks just like our Midwest Short-eared Owl.
It was time to check in to our new lodging, a B&B on the north east side of the island. I later found out that this was the “rainy side”. Great. We had a little room in the attic that in B&B parlance would qualify as “cozy”. Barely enough room to turn around. It didn’t matter because we would not be spending much time in the room anyway. The place had friendly owners and a lot of foliage on the grounds. There were amazing clumps of very tall bamboo trees. We found out later that they had only been growing 15 years. Yikes!!
Tuesday 2/27/2024
We were up and out the door by 6:30 am to meet our guide. This was a tour of West Hawaii. I was grateful that it was a roadside type tour that involved little hiking. And grateful that the west side is the dry side. The birds seen were mostly non-natives and others birds that populate parking lots and golf courses and other spots that are easy to access. The highlight of the trip was the Mountain Thunder Coffee Plantation. This spot had a lovely little botanic garden featuring many tropical plants and other cultivated plants like fruit trees, coffee trees and banana trees. The star of the show birdwise was the endemic Hawaiian Hawk. They were high in the sky but there were three of them giving good views. We continued on, visiting small parks, filling stations and, of course, the wastewater treatment plant. Our last stop of the day was the Macadamia nut company. The nuts are processed there and the hulls are dumped in back of the plant in huge piles. All the birds from nearby spend time on these piles seeking bits of nuts and insects. There were no rarities but you never know. At one point on our travels we were able to see the telescopes on Mauna Kea. “The Mauna Kea Observatories are a group of independent astronomical research facilities and large telescope observatories that are located at the summit of Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi, United States. The facilities are located in a 525-acre special land use zone known as the “Astronomy Precinct”, which is located within the 11,228-acre Mauna Kea Science Reserve.” -from hawaii.edu. The map does not show this spot.
Wednesday 2/28/2024
The bed and breakfast was the traditional style, meaning they serve breakfast at 8:00 am. We weren’t meeting our guide that day so we could take time for a leisurely breakfast and chat with our hosts. After that we drove north on the east side of the island to a few lookouts. There was beautiful scenery but no new birds. We stopped at a gallery and saw a lot of hand crafted items, including beautiful bowls carved from local wood. After lunch we crossed the island and drove to the lookouts facing west.
Thursday 2 29 2024
We were up and on the road early to meet Lance for the last scheduled tour. The plan was to cover the Kohala area of the island, the thumb-shaped northern penninsula. We had already seen many of the scenery attractions the previous day but Lance would see it from a birder’s perspective. We began at a small botanical garden. This did not have a lot of birds but Lance pointed out many of the native plants that grow on the island. We continued on, counting roadside birds as we went. At 9:00 we began a sea watch from a look out on the east side of the peninsula. We stayed for 3 hours. The birds that we saw were the same birds we would have seen from the pelagic tour, but we were safely on land. The showstopper, however, was the Hump-backed whales. They were very active, breaching and tail-slapping and even waving their flippers. Lance identified a mother and her calf.
We carried on after lunch, making brief roadside stops for non-endemic species. As we road east with Lance, we saw a beautiful rainbow. When we got to the end of the rainbow all we got was rain. We headed back to Honokaa, the closest village to our B&B. We chose a nearby bar for dinner just so we could avoid another long drive. There was a lively trivia contest going on and Dad got every question right, even though we weren’t playing.
Friday 3 1 2024
After breakfast our host gave us a tour of the grounds of the B&B, which had some beautiful plants. Many were ornamentals and non-natives. We checked out of the B&B but our flight home didn’t leave until 11:59 pm. We had a whole day of birding on our own. I wanted to return to the Mountain Thunder Coffee Plantation to give Little PIg some quality time in the botanic garden there. We were also hoping to see the Hawaiian Hawk again. After taking photos of the plants we went to the look out to look for hawks. We looked up and right over us, perched in a tree was an immature Hawaiian Hawk!! We took a bunch of photos and then spotted two others nearby. Identifying the bird is easy since they are the only hawk on the island.
We revisited a few of the spots along the shoreline. We had a late dinner at the airport and finally quit making eBird reports. We had a great time but were exhausted. Time to go home and recover!!
