Hiking to the Waterfalls

Today we took a tour with Hawaii Nature and Trail company to hike up to some waterfalls at the north side of the island. After driving along dry lava fields along the airport, we passed areas where the lava fields were covered with grass and mesquite trees. Our guide Jeff was a wealth of information about the geology, astronomy, botany and history of Hawaii. Then, in the blink of an eye, we turned a corner and saw the wet Hawaiian forests around Hawi. At Hawi, we transferred from a very comfortable Mercedes van, to this much older and less luxurious military surplus vehicle so we could traverse the cattle fields on the way to waterfalls in the highlands. No one argued about wearing the mandatory seat belts in this open air transport!

The cows just stared blankly at us when we bounced around their pastures to reach the top of this privately owned ranch. This side of the island can have 100" of rain per year sometimes. The river is crossed by a series of tunnels and sluices to redirect some of the water to the dryer area for sugar cane plantations. Actually, all the sugar plantations closed in Hawaii about 1975, he said.

 We all know that Hawaii is overwhelmed with invasive plants and animals. Some arrived accidentally, and others were introduced. They fight an endless battle with guava (yes, like the juice). Large piles of wood in the pastures were evidence of the unsuccessful efforts to keep it under control. One hillside was absolutely covered in these trees. Jeff picked a few and cut them open for us to try. Not bad, but not something I'd choose for a fruit. It's easy to get in to the pulp, and the pulp is full of seeds. The birds love it, and spread the seeds so more trees sprout no matter how much they chop down the older ones. Scientists are working on a fungus to attack the trees. Oooh, be really careful with that.

Many of the beautiful plants that look like they should be native aren't, such as this African tulip tree, blazing in people's yards. It is very invasive but doesn't spread as much as the guava.

Pineapple plant

Along the river, we found a small field, farmed in the old manner. A pool of water hosted taro plants, while pineapples grew along the sides with ti plants. Jeff described ti leaves as Hawaiian saran wrap, used to carry just about anything.

The waterfalls, of course, were totally awesome, but, as always, the paths were steeper and the steps higher than I could easily manage.

Our reward for the morning's hike was our lunch spot! According to the map, the road ends, and there is only an overlook (not the spot were we were on the ranch). The cliffs are completely vertical, with caves dug out by the waves, and black sand beaches. Trees grow by leaning away from the never ceasing winds.

Islands near the cliffs are rocks left when the cliffs collapsed.

White-tailed Tropic Bird

I was very excited to see long tailed Tropic Birds soaring in the strong winds along the cliffs. 

Cattle Egrets picked bugs off the backs of cattle in the fields, and other invisible birds sang all morning, but I couldn't see any of them. At lunch, we were joined by another bold little Yellow-billed Cardinal, looking for a handout from our lunch.

Just listen to the roaring Ohana Waterfall!

Balcony Birding in Hawaii

Zebra Dove

2018 will be our 45th wedding anniversary, so we decided a trip to Hawaii was in order! After 10 hours in the air on Sunday, we arrived in Kailua-Kona on the west coast of the Big Island. I know that there are lots of introduced species of everything here, but didn't realize how much of what we would see is actually introduced. The first bird I heard at the airport was a House Sparrow. Really! Why would anyone bring House Sparrows! I downloaded a Bird ID Hawaii app, which is terrific help. It only lists 33 native species of birds, and quite a few of them are sub-species of familiar birds such as the Coot and Mallard.

Spotted Dove

However, many of these species are still new to us. In fact, it's like birding on an international tour since the birds may have originated in China, South America, Australia or just about anywhere. So if we hear a dove, it's probably some kind of dove. The bird that sounds like the noisy Long-tailed Grackles in Texas turned out to be Common Myna. They are distinctive with a broad white wing band in flight. Haven't got a good photo of one yet, but there will be plenty of opportunity.

Saffron Finch

Is it a Yellow Finch? Western Tanager? No, the bright yellow birds are Saffron Finch from South America.

Yellow-billed Cardinal

The Yellow-billed Cardinal (actually a tanager), native to South America, likes to bath in the fountain by the pool.  We had the screen open on the balcony, and one started to walk right into the room!

Orange-spotted Gecko

Of course, there are NO native lizards in Hawaii, but this little guy with orange spots is sure a cutie.

Eagles Weekend at Kenlake

Dick and I have been attending the Eagles Weekend at three Kentucky State Parks on Kentucky Lake for over 10 years - at least I have been taking photos there for that long. Each of the three parks takes a weekend in January or early February. The Masterson's party boat comes down to do tours up and down the lake searching for eagles along with water. Kentucky Fish and Wildlife officers do a program on Friday evening and ride on the boat trips to help spot eagles. On the Saturday morning trip this year we saw a record 67 eagles in about an hour and a half.

In 2012, RROKI was doing the live bird program on Saturday night at Lake Barkley Park. The bridges across the lake were very old and very, very narrow. I always dreaded the possibility of meeting a semi crossing the bridge at the same time I was on it. In 2012, a barge ran into the bridge and completely took out a section of it. It took us 90 minutes to drive north and around the peninsula to catch the boat trip.

 Now they have finished a modern four-lane bridge near Kenlake and are almost done with another crossing Lake Barkley. I felt much more at ease when driving across them this time. However, the clerk at the desk said that another barge had run into the pylons already, but didn't do much damage. We noticed that there seemed to be a lack of warning signs and lights on the approach.

The point of the weekend is to find Bald Eagles which can be difficult sometimes. "There is it, in the tree!" Which tree?

The best sightings are when the bird is perched at the tip of a branch or snag so there aren't any branches behind them. The immature birds don't get a white head and tail until they are 5 years old, and their brown and white mottling varies from year to year. I can seen why many people think our Red-tailed Hawk, Lady, is an eagle-this immature bird resembles her quite a bit, only it's much larger.

We had good looks of 2 nests. This one had 2 adults getting it ready for eggs. In the other nest you see the white head of the female peering over the edge as she sat on her eggs.

We watched a mature eagle catch a fish from the lake. He only got to eat it for a few minutes though...

...before a crowd of hungry immature eagles came in expecting to share the catch.

While watching 2 immature eagles perched together, we also spotted 2 adults flying in courtship behavior! Very exciting!

Of course, there were other birds on the lake too. American pelicans flew by in formation, but we didn't see large numbers of them at once. I spotted a couple Common Loons, but they were always too far away for a good photo.

Here is something new---a small truck looks like it backed down into the water overnight. A small tent was on the shore. Wonder how they will ever get a tow truck in to pull it out again!

I've been doing the RROKI programs for several years now, but this was the first time our directors did not come for the weekend. Three volunteers did it all. Here are our eagles taking a stretch while we cleaned out their cages. 77 people attended the program on Saturday night for the best view they had of live eagles all weekend!

We had a wonderful time, but I was really beat by the time we drove home again. A 2 hour nap, and I was ready for the SuperBowl party with friends.

WOW - The Snow and Ice

When the temperatures are below freezing, or in the single digits, for several days, things freeze up pretty fast. A little snow can stay around for days, recording the goings of any creature that walks through it. Even birds can leave tracks larger than their footprints. I don't know what bird left these wing prints, but I hope it was successful in either catching some prey or escaping from a predator.

 Kentucky Lake is a large navigable waterway, so the middle stays open all the time. The diving ducks could hunt easily, but the dabblers who need shallow water had more trouble. If enough of them stayed together, they could keep a small opening in the ice from freezing over, just by swimming around. They often stayed with the geese who are bigger and better as ice breakers.

I worried about the Great Blue Herons who hunkered down a the edge of the ice trying to fluff up and keep warm. Other parts of the lake, miles away, might have some open shallow water, but not the herons by the state park.

A group of Sandhill Cranes landed at the Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge to graze for a while, joined by a flock of geese. The Refuge is surrounded by privately owned property and the owners set up private hunting clubs, so we heard gunshot throughout the day. Some of the decoys are very elaborate and must cost a bunch. These hunters aren't allowed to bait a field with grain, but if they leave extra corn out the rest of he year, the waterfowl know to look there in winter, not realizing that they may get shot on one side of the road, but not on the other.

The native hunters aren't restricted and can hunt where ever they like. Our group saw a coyote casually strolling across the ice. Bald Eagles sat on the ice looking for a wounded duck to catch. We heard stories from some of the birders who had seen bobcats going after ducks on the ice too.

 By Sunday, the snow was all melted, and the ice on the lake was receding quickly. It broke into regular sized floes, and made a noise similar to rustling leaves as the water beneath moved it around.

WOW Birding Festival

We like to go to winter birding festivals - usually in warm Southern climes. January has been just awful in Kentucky - temps in the single digits with ice and snow. But we saw a notice for a new birding festival in Western Tennessee, at the lower end of Kentucky Lake. It's only about a 4 hour drive, assuming the weather cooperates, and the two speakers are some of our favorite people. Brian "Fox" Ellis does historical re-enactments of John James Audubon, Charles Darwin and others. This weekend he would attend as Audubon. Julie Zickefoose is an Ohio birding expert, bird rehabber, artist, author and singer! With stars like this we couldn't resist signing up for Wings in Winter at Paris Landing State Park.

For the pre-festival day, we signed up to go to Cross Creeks NWR, near Dover, TN. Of course, it was covered with snow and ice, and although there were birds, they were usually so far away you couldn't distinguish them well with just binoculars. However, the sun was bright (and me without a baseball hat in the car!) and they sky was blue, so it was the best day of the weekend. When the ducks got spooked by something, Julie gave us all wonderful lessons in duck identification on the wing. For example, the Gadwall is a plain looking gray bird with floating on the water. In flight though, it's almost entirely white. You can easily pick out the Pintails by their pointy tails in flight. And Northern Shovelers are mostly rusty on the bottom.

 Many of us were surprised to see good numbers of American Pelicans grouped on the sandbars. Then one took off and flew right over our heads!

Of course, the Bald Eagle numbers have rebounded in the last 25 years or so, and many of them either reside or come to winter on Kentucky Lake. We saw them perching in the trees, or sliding across the ice, hoping to nab a wounded duck.

The Wildlife Refuge manages the water and crops for the benefit of birds who will come to winter, so most fields have some kind of stubble, and the birds graze looking for leftover corn or millet. It's fun to look at the tracks and try to guess what made the. Not a deer, certainly.

When the geese started casually walking towards the corn stubble, it was easy to tell what made all those tracks! Once in a while, the Canada Geese would be joined by a Snow or Ross goose or some White-fronted Geese, so we had lots of variety.

We saw things I did not expect too, such as thousands of Red-winged Blackbirds in the fields along with the Grackles. I thought they all went much farther south in the winter.

Raptor numbers were good and we saw Harriers, Red Tails, Red Shoulders and Kestrels along with the Eagles.

We did NOT expect to find an armadillo, however. In Tennessee!? It ran across the road in the snow, leaving a trail of four footprints around a dragging tail mark.

Fall on Pine Mountain

Last weekend we took off for the mountains, specifically, Pine Mountain State Park. Pine Mountain itself is about 125 miles long, from Jellico, TN to Elkhorn City, KY, and runs along the Virginia border. Unlike much of Eastern Kentucky, it has NO coal, and has been spared the terrible destruction of coal mining over the centuries.  Kentucky Natural Lands Trust  has been working since 1995 to preserve this wilderness area via purchase or conservation easements, and now protects over 25,000 acres. Pine Mountain State Park brags that it is the first state park in Kentucky. The dining room overlooks the mountains and valleys, and in the morning, the valley is often filled with fog in an ocean of fluffy white clouds.

 Fall is my favorite time of year, when the October blue sky fills all the spaces between the trees...

... and the sun shines down through the leaves shine with gold and red.

We particularly like the lichens growing conveniently at eye level. In the spring and summer, I want to know all about the wildflowers and ferns. But when we walk along giant boulders, I want to study lichens. We found some British Soldiers too, but they were too small to photograph well.

One trail led back to Honeymoon Falls, which had water in it despite the dry weather.

Bittersweet berries were glowing orange on their bushes. Apparently these are the non-native variety. The native Bittersweet only has berries on the tips of the branch.

Clear Creek trail was built on the old rail road bed, when the rails were removed. I enjoyed a trail that only had a 6 foot change in elevation!