Kaua’i, Hawaii
by Joan Boxall
Bird-watching is the most popular recreation in America, and the Audubon Bird Count summons us every December to the Christmas Bird Count on the ‘Garden Isle’ of Kauai in the Hawaiian Archipelago. With David Kuhn, creator of the website, ‘Sounds Hawaiian’, we add native forest birds to our count. Kuhn leads us into the Alakai Swamp’s mist and mud, in Koke’e National Park, on a surreal mission, where we are about to trade eyes for ears.
The Audubon Count has been ongoing for 114 years and is the longest running Citizen Science survey, offering data on population trends of North American birds, from mid-December to early January.
In the early nineteenth century, Audubon, ornithologist, painter/illustrator, naturalist, taxidermist and author of the four-volume, Birds of America, sketched and then water-color painted renderings of over 700 of the 914 species, then topped up, with chalk pastel details. Innovative at that time was his depiction of birds in their natural habitat, in everyday poses. We feel ready to identify some of those, in the field.
Early-birds we aren’t, so we drive from sea level on Kauai’s South Shore the day before and stay the night at Orchard Cottage, a cabin situated at 3600 feet, a five-minute walk from The Lodge at Koke’e State Park. Volunteers get a reduced rate with a family membership. We sign up.
Outside, Red Jungle fowl (chicken escapees from 1992’s Hurricane Iniki) strut and peck, while we enjoy our home-cooked spaghetti dinner. It’s December’s early dusk, and we find ourselves constellation-gazing. Orion, The Hunter, with his club and shield, rises up. Alongside are his faithful hunting dogs, Canis Major (the Big Dipper) and Canis Minor (the Little Dipper).
Bedside reading is Hawaii’s Birds by the Hawaii Audubon Society, which includes the native birds we’ll be spying. I’m cramming as if for a driving signage test: two yellow ones, two red ones and a brownie. The red and yellow ones have curved and straight beaks. On the (olive) yellow side is the Common ‘Amakihi (Mr. Curved Beak), and his sweet warbling straight man, ‘Anianiau, who, just to make things interesting, is known as the lesser ‘Amakihi.
In the red corner is ‘I’iwi whose call, like a rusty gate, squeaks from its curved hinge. As it turns out, the bird with the most agile movements and versatile calls turns out to be Kuhn’s favorite songster, the ‘Apapane. All four are honeycreepers, unique to Hawaii. Oh, and the little brownie? That’s the hikers’ friend, ‘Elepaio, with cocky tail feathers and a curious boldness. I’m ready for my drivers’ test and dawn comes quickly on our Jungle fowl alarm-clock.
We introduce ourselves outside the Koke’e Museum at seven, and loosely plot a process for the morning count. I’ll record specie sightings, while Kuhn and my husband will spot, look and listen. After a twenty-minute, slick 4×4 mud-road ride to the Alakai Swamp Trailhead, Kuhn provides us with long bamboo walking sticks. Bird counts are open to the public, and we wait for any late arrivals, but it’s just us. We count on the way in, so as not to re-count any birds on the way back. It’s a linear hike; out and back. ‘By the way,’ he adds, ‘we may get a sixth bird, the ‘Akeke’e. It’s a long shot.’
It is another LYB (little yellow bird), but with a descending trill. At this point, I suspect that the top six may be harder to spot than previously thought. As it turns out, this isn’t about spotting. We won’t be eye witnesses; we’ll be ear witnesses.
We head out on the Alakai Trail, which in Hawaiian means ‘to lead’, where the Pihea Trail intersects. Pihea means ‘wailing voices’, but I’m hoping Kuhn is leading us to where the birds elicit the din (no whining or wailing from us). We’re climbing to 4000 feet— puffing, bouncing, and sometimes slithering on meshed redwood planks, all-the-while inhaling mist that blows in wisps across the trail. We’re teetering on the ridge above the Kalalau Valley. Tack it up to the altitude. I’m dizzy with delight. And my ears feel like gramophone horns— two stretching lobes, leaning into the rain forest for the slightest incantation from our bird buddies.
We hear trills, warbles, slurs, cheeps, chips, buzzes, squeaks and something like a cell phone. ‘The cell phones are crickets,’ says Kuhn, pursing lips to forearm in a kissing-call to attract Apapane.
‘One more Apapane,’ says Kuhn, and I switch to pencil as the paper puckers in the dampness.
Kuhn’s love calls succeed, and we count 33 of them, thanks to his audacious ear. We walk in silence, and after two hours, re-route.
‘Did you see that?’ asks Kuhn. I observe a flutter of red, like two valentines. ‘Two ‘Apapane mating, right on the trail,’ says an ecstatic Kuhn. ‘Never seen that.’
We continue on with smiles on our faces. Kuhn stops again minutes later. His composure is ruffled. He’s riveted on the forest, hanging on every note.
‘I’ve got to catch a glimpse just to confirm that sighting,’ he says. Moments later he reappears.
‘Yes, it’s an ‘Akeke’e, an endangered species, only found in Kauai’s Waimea Canyon region, present and accounted for.’
‘What drew you to this work?’ I ask Kuhn.
‘Probably growing up on a duck farm…I was a hunter.’
Just like Audubon. Just like Orion. And now, listening and recording have become Kuhn’s shield, dog, gun, chalk pastel and paintbrush… for conservation and enjoyment.
Private Tour: Kauai Waterfalls, Hidden Beaches, Ancient Sites, Kilauea Lighthouse and Hanalei Bay
If You Go:
♦ Birds of Kauai: www.kauaibirds.comwww.kauaibirds.com
♦ Bird Watching in Hawaii: www.hawaiiaudubon.com/birding/kauai.html
♦ www.hawaiiaudubon.org/#!kauai-birding/c1yzp
♦ Kauai Bird Recovery Project: kauaiforestbirds.org/about-us/
About the author:
Joan Boxall is a Vancouver writer with a keen interest in bird watching. At present (December 2014) she is back on Kauai to attend the Christmas Bird Count again. She is a member of the BC Travel Writer’s Association.
NOTE: David Kuhn’s Websites are here – soundshawaiian.com/birds_kauai.html and www.birdquest-tours.com/ourteam.cfm?team=37
Photo credits:
‘Anianiau – USGS / Public domain
‘Elepaio – HarmonyonPlanetEarth / CC BY
Amakihi – Bettina Arrigoni / CC BY
‘I’iwi – Kanalu ChockCamera location20° 46′ 03.6″ N, 156° 14′ 09″ W View this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMap – Google Earth 20.767667; -156.235833 / CC BY-SA
‘Apapane – ALAN SCHMIERER from southeast AZ, USA / CC0
“This place has the feeling of power,” says archaeologist Mark Eddowes at a rectangular terrace enclosed by stone walls. We are on a wooded hillside overlooking the bay where Captain James Cook arrived at the island of Moorea in 1774. Eddowes has been excavating and restoring ancient sites like these, called marae, for many years. They were open-air temples that honoured gods and ancestors, where chiefs and priests once presided over rites to ensure a good harvest or a successful military campaign. These involved the sacrifice of valued animals and often humans as well.
At Huahine, the tides surge through a narrow channel. Ancient islanders built stone walls in the shallows. These funnelled the lagoon fishes into small enclosures, where they were easily netted. The fish traps were restored in the 1970s. We watch local men reap a bountiful harvest. Our guide recognizes one man who recently lost his job. He may be catching fish to sell, but more likely it is for his family.
A week in the South Pacific is too short, so we follow the cruise with visits to two more islands. At Raiatea, we stay at the beautifully landscaped Raiatea Lodge. Our bed is sprinkled with hibiscus blossoms. The balcony looks out to sea. Renting a car gives us a closer look at island life than short outings from the cruise ship. The town of Uturoa bustles with shops, restaurants and traffic. Elsewhere, the pace is laid back, in tune with island time.
The warrior’s marae has a tall central stone. Only men who measured up were deemed suitable for combat. The larger main marae features a long wall of flat stones and carved totem-like wooden planks representing animal or human figures. Archaeologists have found human bones, likely from sacrifices to that fierce god. The story goes that Oro was frequently copulating with the goddess of the land and was weakened thereby, so he needed to be fed with male vibrancy. Warriors were sent out each year to snatch a number of unlucky young men. With the arrival of Christianity, the marae were abandoned.
Hunched over a chopping block, a woman uses a machete to remove the green husks from chestnuts, while her son prepares to boil them. Smoke from an open fire, where breadfruits are roasting, fills the air. On a forested slope, huge pigs root around. Beyond a tin-roofed house sprawls an irrigated patch of taro. Coconuts, bananas and citrus fruits grow everywhere. After our stroll through several backyards, a man catches up to offer a plate of roasted breadfruit. Its smoky taste is delicious.
Island life centres on the seaside road. Bicycles are most of the traffic. For children, it’s their playground. Several cars or trucks come by every hour. It may be the baker, delivering the baguettes. Or Laboudet Edmond, a retired French officer and market gardener, who sells cabbages from a trailer behind his motor scooter. And then the dogs go back to sleep in the road. Nobody passes without a cheerful greeting.
Samoa’s capital, Apia, on the island of Upolu, retains a pleasant, rather tired atmosphere that has been lost in the more popular Pacific tourist destinations of Hawaii and Tahiti. Life goes on at a leisurely pace and there are no crowds to negotiate or much traffic on the roads. Apia is small but charming and you can fill in a couple of hours meandering around.
The fruit and vegetable market is in a low slung building in the centre of Apia. The pace on Samoa is slow and languid and neither buyers nor sellers are in a hurry. The efficient Germans brought in Chinese workers rather than rely on Samoans to work in the coconut, cacao and rubber plantations they established.
Vailima was the grandest house on the island with a magnificent staircase and a large room for entertaining which included a fireplace, the only one of its kind in Samoa. Stevenson’s mother, who lived with Stevenson, his wife and step-children in Samoa, brought all her furniture from Scotland, and all other furnishings were imported.
The wide and starry sky Stevenson lies under is far from the gaslights of Edinburgh’s New Town where he was born. You can walk up the Road of Loving Hearts to his grave and gaze out, as he does, across the green of his adopted home to the sparkling blue of the Pacific.
The island of Savai’i, the biggest island in the group and an hour and a half hour ferry ride from Upolu is well worth a visit. At Sapapali’i on Savai’i is a large monument to mark the spot where John Williams of the London Missionary Society landed in 1830 to spread God’s word among the Samoan people. He was obviously successful as religion plays an important part in Samoan life today. There are churches all over the islands and observation of the Sabbath is strict. On Sunday morning whole families go to church dressed in white; the men in lava lavas and the women in dresses and often hats. Apart from hotels there are no restaurants or shops open on Sundays.
Between 1905 and 1911 the volcano of Mt Matavanu on Savai’i erupted and lava poured out destroying five villages. Today the lava fields of Saleaula are an eerie reminder of this disaster. The expanse of black hard molten lava with the odd plant growing has an unreal quality. Driving further on we were shown the ruins of a church buried in the lava by Lily, who lived nearby. Lily showed us the ‘virgin’s grave’ – the grave of a nun untouched by the flowing lava and where flowers have now been planted in the only soil at the site.
Today, the old general store and social hall far below are barely standing, my family’s house still sits proudly high atop a hill and the old mill remains were finally taken down this past year. Paauhau remains a peaceful residential enclave for those who have chosen this exquisitely beautiful, quieter lifestyle.
Having once played the role as a classic plantation region in the early 20th century, the Hamakua Coast has needed to diversify its economic base with the closure of many plantations. With much of the area still zoned for agriculture, additional crop offerings now include pineapples, coffee, papayas, macadamia nuts and tea.
With a treasure trove of historic buildings still lining the downtown sector including the Honokaa People’s Theatre and Hotel Honokaa Club, Honokaa was once a popular hangout for thousands of WWII Marines and soldiers stationed nearby and a bustling commercial center for the sugar mill camps of Haina, Kukuihaele, Paauhau, Kapulena, and New Stable. It’s also where my grandmother once taught school and where my parents were married back in the 1950s.
Continuing south, Hilo’s Sugar Plantation Museum is intriguing, authentic and informative. Recently relocated from downtown Hilo and up the Hamakua Coast a few miles, it’s now located in the old Papaikou Plantation Store and is now in the midst of reopening. With a family history so richly ensconced in the region’s sugar plantation legacy, we are granted our own personal viewing and tour the museum one afternoon. Still in the process of being refurbished, photos, home décor, carvings and vintage signs adorn the walls and display cases. This place is truly a step back in time to plantation life and a well-deserved restoration of an entire lifestyle once found throughout the region.
Heading into several antique stores is also synonymous with revisiting the area’s intriguing past. Authentic Hawaiian shirts, books, ukuleles and vintage record albums line the crowded aisles. There’s a dignified serenity throughout this town that honors a long, rich history. Art Deco buildings still bearing the names of original stores, including Kress and the Palace Theatre, rise high above the friendly, local streets below.
The thought stayed with me over the years. The idea of flying in a glider fascinated me but though opportunities came and went, I never took advantage of them. Finally when the opportunity became available I couldn’t miss the chance.
The rudder or vertical stabilizer is the vertical wing-like structure on the tail and turns the airplane. It is used to control the yaw of the aircraft by allowing the pilot to point the nose of the plane left or right.
Soon I notice that the tow plane is loosing the tow rope and we are on our own. Suddenly it becomes so quiet, I can just about hear my heart beat. The rush of the incoming air into the compartment from the vent is the only noise I hear. It is like being up in the air with just you and God. I had always thought that it would be this way.
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