Oops!

Oops!  In my preceding post about our adventure on the mountain yesterday, I completely forgot to write about our birding fun! 

By far the highlight of the birding part of the day came almost at the end of our trip around the mountain, when we were in the dense fog.  We came over the top of a little bump, and both of us saw movement on our right, just 10 feet or so in front of the truck.  By the time we got our eyeballs tracking on the movement, the bird we saw had landed in the tall grass about 30' from the truck.  As soon as we got a good view we could see it was a pueo, an Hawai'ian owl, just like in the photo at right (which is not mine, dang it!).  A few seconds later, it hopped up about three feet onto a lava outcropping – and then stayed there until we'd had our fill of watching him, perhaps 15 minutes later!  While we watched he made some odd movements.  One of them was very cute: it would tip it's head on the side, first one side and then the other.  The other was just weird: it held its head level, but moved it in a circular pattern, as if tracing out the numbers on a clock face.  We have no idea why it did that!

We've seen pueos on many of our trips to Hawai'i; they're fairly common here.  In fact, we had three other pueo sightings early in the day just yesterday.  But none of those sightings were anything at all like the one yesterday – they were all brief sightings of the pueo in flight, usually hunting, and usually at a considerable remove.  This pueo was between 20' and 40' from the truck (we moved the truck to get a closer view after we'd watched for a while).  With the binoculars, our view was so good we could count the barbs on his feathers!

In addition to that fantastic pueo experience, we also spotted an oma'o, a common amakihi, an io (the Hawai'ian hawk), several species of plovers that we haven't identified, and a lark.  All of those are quite common birds except the io, which is uncommon – we've only seen one once before, many years ago.

A day on the mountain...

A day on the mountain...  Yesterday morning we took off bright and early, heading down to Hilo and then up Saddle Road, which runs between the two biggest mountains on the island: Mauna Loa (to the south) and Mauna Kea (to the north).  Right in the middle of that road we turned onto the Mauna Kea access road, which eventually will take you all the way to the summit where the telescopes are.  We got off that road at around the six mile mark, though, and headed in a 40 mile long arc counter-clockwise around Mauna Kea, ending up in the town of Waimea, north of the mountain.  Most of the time we were between 6,000 and 8,000 feet high, on a dirt road that varied between a nice, flat back road easily handled by a two-wheel drive sedan all the way to a challenging four-wheel drive only road that took my full attention to navigate.

On the drive down to Hilo we got our first glimpses of Mauna Kea, and we were surprised just how clearly we could see it.  The Hilo side of the island is normally very humid, and the air consequently hazy.  There are many, many days when you can't see Mauna Kea from Hilo at all (and vice versa), but the day's exceptional clarity meant we could not only see the mountain, but even with our naked eye we could pick out the telescopes, snow fields near the summit, and broad bands of color around the mountain.  It had three distinct layers of color, even from 40 miles away in Hilo: reds and browns at the top, where cinder lies exposed and barren; yellowish brown in the middle; and a million shades of green on the bottom where the forests and pasture lands dominate.

As we got closer to the mountain while on Saddle Road, the middle band became more distinctly yellow, and it finally dawned on us why that was so: nearly all the gorse on the mountain was simultaneously in bloom.  Gorse is an invader, its seeds brought in with the grain that early ranchers purchased from Scotland for their cattle.  It has no enemies here in Hawai'i – nothing eats it or kills it.  The high, dry, bare sides of the mountain are excellent habitat for it – so it has spread remorselessly since its introduction.  Eradicating it is a high priority for those working to restore native habitats.  But...today it predominates in a broad range of altitudes on the east side of Mauna Kea – and the first third or so of our drive around the mountain was right through the middle of it.  The photos below all show gorse; darn near every plant was in bloom.  We've only seen it before with occasional plants in bloom, so this was quite a display.  The scent of gorse is like a mild, coconutty suntan lotion – and in mass bloom like we drove through that scent became part of the background.

In several of the photos below you can spot the cindery higher parts of Mauna Kea.  In the seventh photo in particular you can see Mauna Kea's summit and some of the telescopes there.  But look closely at that one: to the right of the summit you'll see what looks like a higher peak, more distant than Mauna Kea.  That's an illusion; in fact, that “taller” peak was much closer to us than Mauna Kea's summit, and over 1,000 feet shorter.  The clarity of the air and the lack of objects to provide relative scale creates all sorts of illusions like this. 

After we left the land of gorse, we entered koa territory.  The photos above include a few koa, as the gorse and koa territories overlap considerably.  The photos below were all taken across the northern half of Mauna Kea, more koa than anyone but a koa nut like me would want. :)  I love koa – they're my favorite tree, and in no small part that's because of the koas on the north side of Mauna Kea.  These photos were all taken in the now-defunct Parker Ranch lands.  When we first started coming here, about 40 years ago, the ranch was still going full tilt.  We saw cowboys on horses driving vast herds of beef cattle through this area.  Now the lands are mostly owned by private and public nature preservation groups until you get quite close to the town of Waimea.  Leftover structures and equipment (like the sheep's feet at right) litter the entire area.  There are no more cowboys and cattle to be seen.  But, on this trip, for the first time in our many trips here, we saw something else: vast numbers of small koa trees.  Some were seedlings sprouted just this year; others looked like they were ten or twelve years old.  During the day it occurred to us that twelve years ago is when the cattle were all removed – so I'm speculating that the reason the pasture lands had only occasional individual koas (instead of the usual forests) is that the cattle killed the koa babies.  Koa killers!  I will never look at cattle the same way again!

But the great news is that the koa are propagating in this part of Mauna Kea at a prodigious rate.  Before the ranchers burned it all off to create pasture lands, the flanks of Mauna Kea were all a gigantic koa forest – and now it looks like things are headed that way again.  I won't live long enough to see it happen, but it feels really good to know that it's headed that way...

Right in the middle of the koa territory is a monument to Dr. David Douglas, a famous botanist who was one of my dad's heroes.  Douglas died here on the slopes of Mauna Kea, caught in a pig trap (a pit with stakes).  The Douglas fir is but one of hundreds of plant species either named for him or by him.  When I first visited this spot, perhaps 30 years ago, it was completely overrun by the forest.  I had a hard time even finding it (thought it's just 1/4 mile from the road), much less seeing it.  Over the years local botanical groups have gradually improved the site, until now the monument sits in a small park-like area, overhung by koa and Douglas fir, surrounded by native plants.  The trail is now a mowed path through a sparse koa forest with a grassy floor.  It's beautiful.  I was fortunate enough to bring my dad here in the '90s, when he was still vigorous.  He made the short hike down to the monument, quite moved by the experience.  He spoke of it often in his later years.  All these memories came flooding in as I stood before that monument yesterday; I walked back to our car slowly, choked up and full of tears...

As we got closer to Waimea, we lost altitude and eventually entered into a thick fog.  As we drove down the road, we noticed that anywhere a tree overhung the road, there was a wet spot on the road beneath – and raindrops would hit the car as we passed under.  What was happening there?  Well, its the wind-driven mist condensing on the tree leaves and then dripping down.  A lot of mist condensing, because it really was “raining” under these trees, and it was sopping wet, as you can see in the photos below.  Debbie put an earlier observation together with this phenomenon and figured out that we were seeing lush green grass under the trees because of this phenomenon; I'm sure she's right.

When we got to Waimea, at around 5:30, the first thing on our mind was to find a place to eat.  Debbie did some research online and picked Merriman's, and a fine pick it turned out to be.  This is very much an upscale restaurant, both in price and presentation.  The staff were unpretentious, totally approachable, and just a delight.  The food?  Well, let's just say I'd be happy to pay for that meal again.  It was superb.  We started with a mini loaf of bread, warm, with a delicious butter (herbed).  I had iced tea that had just a bit of passionfruit flavor, with a little flask of sugar syrup to sweeten it (nice touch, that).  Our shared appetizer was a quesadilla stuffed with kalua pork and caramelized onions.  We jumped on it so fast that I forgot to take photos of it, as I did with our entrees, too.  We each ordered an entree but we split them, so we both got some onago (local red snapper) and ono (a classic Hawai'ian fish).  They were cooked absolutely perfectly, not overpowered by any sauces, and were accompanied by wonderful local vegetables.  Finally, for dessert we shared a bread pudding topped with coconut sherbet (second photo below), and a creme brulee topped with burnt sugar mixed with coconut (first photo below) that came with some macadamia nut cookies.  Both were simply wonderful...

A lovely day in Hawai'i...

A lovely day in Hawai'i...  We woke before daybreak this morning, had a leisurely breakfast, supplied by Hale Ohia.  That papaya at right, with lime wedges, was part of it.  Two locally grown bananas and a mini-loaf of homemade banana bread was the rest, along with great coffee and tea.

First thing we did today was to set off on a walk we always make on our trips to the Big Island: the Kipuka Puaulu loop trail just a few miles from Kilauea Crater.  This trail is only a little over a mile long, with little elevation change, but it was our first test of how well Debbie could do on an actual hike.  She did really well!  Made it all around the loop without any problem at all; ended up tired but not hurting.  An excellent start, and an even better portent!

The photos below were all taken along the trail.  It's a beautiful place, full of native plants (the invaders are being eliminated carefully).  It's best known, though, for the birds that it attracts – in fact, an alternate name for it is “Bird Park”.  We saw lots of apapane, an elepaio, and an oma'o.  The apapane were downright common – we had more good sightings of that beautiful bird today than in all our previous visits combined.  The elepaio we've seen before, but never as close as the one we saw today, who was bathing in the water left in a stump.  The oma'o we have never seen before, and we only spotted it today with the assistance of a fellow we met on the trail who turned out to be a local who was also an avid birder.  Meeting him was a real stroke of luck – not only did he help us spot and identify birds in Kipuka Puaulu, he also told us of three other places to go see native birds.

The last photo below shows orange algae growing on the trunk of a koa tree.  This algae grew only on koa trees, but not all of them.  Perhaps one trunk out of 100 had this bright orange coating.  There was nothing obvious that told me why one tree had it and another didn't.  So far as I could tell, the algae did no harm to the host tree.  Strange thing...

We had a wonderful time on this hike today.

After the hike and bird-watching session, we stopped in at the Volcano Art Center (in the National Park), where we saw some really beautiful native woodworking.  Our favorite pieces were two rocking chairs made of curly mango wood.  Gorgeous, they were.  Then we took off for Hilo, where we visited Walmart to stock up on some supplies we'd missed, and then to Dragon Kitchen Sushi for our evening meal.  Dragon Kitchen was not the typical sushi joint.  It's one of three vendors in a small food court inside an old building along Hilo's waterfront.  In a tiny little kitchen, a sushi chef and a helper prepared all the food and acted as cashier.  You place your order at the counter, then they holler at you when it's ready – and you take your food to some tables shared by all the vendors.  It's quite inexpensive.  For less than $40, Debbie and I stuffed ourselves with great fish.  The sushi itself was also different, as it was made with brown rice instead of the usual white rice.  We liked it all very much, washed it down with some ice cold green tea.  We left with happy bellies and not a trace of hunger.

There was one rather unhappy moment today, though.  On the way to Hilo, we stopped at the studio of Dan DeLuz, a well-known wood turner in Kurtistown.  We had visited him many times over the years, and I've purchased a half dozen or so bowls that he turned from native woods (koa and milo, mainly).  On our last visit there, about 12 years ago, we had a long, relaxed conversation with him – about the native woods, his turning techniques, and life in general.  This afternoon when we drove up, there was a woman sitting outside his studio reading a book.  She asked us what we wanted, and when we said that we were here to see Dan she told us that he'd passed away five years ago.  She was his wife, Mary Lou, and we stayed and talked a while with her.  When she found out we'd been there before, had talked with Dan, and owned some of his bowls, she was instantly relaxed and friendly.  She also advised us to hang onto those bowls, as their value has gone up markedly since Dan passed away.  There's no way I would part with those bowls, anyway, as they're so beautiful.

It's sad to ponder the absence of someone like Dan...

Tomorrow we're going to get up early and head for Mauna Kea.  The forecast calls for clear skies, and they've been clear for a week – so the road should be good and dry, and we should have no problem making it all the way around the mountain.  At the moment I'm writing this, Debbie and I are enjoying a glass of champagne on the front porch of our little cabin.  The sun has just set.  We're surrounded by bird song in the ohia forest around our cabin.

It was a lovely day...