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Hawaii: The Big Island

 


Remy was keen on taking a winter break in Hawaii, so we arranged a trip to the “Big Island” where we had spent our honeymoon almost 30 years ago. We based ourselves in Kona, since we found a couple of great snorkeling sites there on another visit a few years ago. We also gave ourselves a night in the Volcanoes National Park.

This wasn’t a birding trip but I negotiated an early morning trip to Waikaloa up the coast and then a half day trip up to native forest along Saddle Road. Other than that, it was very much a case of casual birding around where we were staying or hiking. Unlike many US birders who make a real effort to see all the species introduced to the islands, I cannot summon up any enthusiasm for the incoherent mix of exotics on the islands. I naturally ran into many of them but was more interested in studying Pacific Golden-Plovers, which are scattered around the lowlands in small numbers and much commoner than on the coast of California.

Pacific Golden-Plover

Ruddy Turnstones and Wandering Tattlers are similarly commoner than on the California Coast, but the priority shorebird on any trip to Hawaii is Bristle-thighed Curlew. Hawaii is the only place to see this species easily, given the effort that it can take on the Alaska breeding grounds. 40 years ago, the species only wintered in the uninhabited northwestern islands, but a regular wintering population became established by Kahuku in Oahu. Subsequently, small numbers have started to winter in the Waikaloa area of the Big Island, where they often feed on the golf courses there.

Ruddy Turnstone

Early on the third day of our vacation saw me getting up pre-dawn and making the 45-minute drive up to Waikaloa. I was unsure how easy access would be and hoped by arriving at an early hour, there would not be any golfers around if I needed to sneak out on to the course to get a better look.

On arriving in the area, I began to systematically search all the golf courses visible from the main entrance road, racking up several dozen Pacific Golden-Plovers but, alas, no curlew. I eventually reached a point where I had to turn around. As I backtracked, I noticed I was passing a cul-de-sac which had a ‘hidden’ course at the end of it. I turned around and went down the cul-de-sac and found a parking area being used by some construction workers. I was able to get to the edge of course and was very relieved to see a curlew feeding along the edge of the course about 150 yards away. Fortunately, there was no one on the course, so I grabbed my camera from the car and approached to get closer views. While I saw the bird much better, it proved a little more skittish than I hoped and walked off into a field of jagged lava stones before I could get a decent shot. A consolation prize was a cooperative Hawaiian Goose.

Hawaiian Goose

Heading a bit further back along the road, I parked at the entrance to a small track that ran along another fairway. I got out of the car and immediately heard and saw a curlew flying off from further down the track. I set off down the track and shortly had another or the same curlew fly up from the lava rock flats on to the golf course. This bird proved more cooperative and I got some pretty good photos, at least by my standards.

Bristle-thighed Curlew

Satisfied with the excellent looks, I made one additional check along a side road to the club house, where I found at least one more, rather distant, bird. These were the first Bristle-thighed Curlews I had seen this century, after seeing them three times in the 1990s.

The next 3 days saw us exploring some parks near Kona and then looping east through Volcanoes National Park and Hilo and Saddle Road to return to Kona. A walk at a National Historic Monument just north of town give us great looks at nine different Green Turtles and a vagrant Laughing Gull, while the nearby fishpond had Hawaiian Coots and some Lesser Scaup and American Wigeon. A snorkeling hihglight was my first ever look at a big adult moray eel - a Yellow-edged Moray.

Green Turtle

Volcanoes National Park has changed significantly since our honeymoon. Back then, a road went round the entire crater. Subsequently, the volcano took out over half the road! While walking along the crater rim trail and enjoying the spectacular views and smoking crater, the first native birds of the trip appeared - Hawaiian Hawk and a nice male Apapane. The next day, we saw a couple more Hawaiian Hawks briefly around Hilo before heading back towards Kona via Saddle Road, which traverses the high center of the island. A stop along there to hike on a trail through some native forest allowed great looks at an Iiwi, the emblematic bird of Hawaii. Remy even remembered it from a guided nature hike we had booked on our honeymoon. Unfortunately, I didn’t take my camera on that hike, which proved a costly mistake, as I did not see another Iiwi.

The last full day of our trip saw me drive back up to Saddle Road and up the road on the slopes of Mauna Kea to try for the two remaining Big Island endemics I had never seen – Hawaii Creeper and Hawaii Akepa. I drove up to near the entrance to the Hakalau NWR, which is the stronghold for these two species, which only occasionally occur along the forested tracts off Saddle Road. Hakalau itself is off-limits to casual birders and protected by a pig-proof fence. However, there is a small section of Koa forest between Hakalau and the road that I hoped would have the species.

Akiapolaau bill close up

Once I got inside the forest, I almost immediately found a Hawaiian Creeper. In fact, there were two or three, accompanied by an Akiapolaau. Over the next three hours, I noticed that these two species were usually together. The ‘Aki’ is famous for its crazy bill shape, which features a long, thin decurved upper mandible and a shorter, straight chisel-like lower mandible that gets used like a woodpecker’s bill. Hawaii Amakihi were probably the commonest honeycreeper and I also saw several Apapanes, four Elepaio and a single Omao. The exotics at this altitude included some different ones with Red-billed Leiothrix, Erckel’s Spurfowl and Wild Turkeys present, along with Skylarks on the drive in. I never got even a sniff at an Akepa. Iiwi were also notably absent, presumably because there were no blooming ohia trees nearby.

Hawaiian Creeper

 

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