Dodging the Rain-Kileaua Light House

We had a sunset boat trip scheduled for Tuesday afternoon on the other end of the island. What should we do in the morning, given the fact that rain was in the forecast?

Of the many National Wildlife Refuges on Kauai, one of the easiest to find is at Kileaua Light House. It stands on a short peninsula, and is home to many nesting sea birds. It also happens to miss the showers building up over the mountains, making it the perfect place to spend the morning.

The cliffs surrounding the Refuge are home to scores of nesting Red-footed Boobies - a life bird for us, since we did not see them in he Galapagos.

Nene Crossing signs are on both sides of the road, and the Nenes don't seem to be afraid of people. We have seen more of them on golf courses than anywhere else. Nēnē are extremely vulnerable to predation by introduced animals like rats, dogs, cats, mongooses, and pigs. Some studies, show that low productivity, perhaps caused by the poor available nutrition in their habitat and droughts also impact nēnē populations. Approximately 1,950 nēnē exist in the wild today with 416 on Maui, 165 on Moloka‘i, 850-900 on Kaua‘i, and 457 on the island of Hawai‘i. As of 2009, over 2,700 captive-bred nēnē have been released statewide either on public lands or private lands managed under cooperative agreements with State and Federal resource agencies. Nēnē have been raised in captivity by the Zoological Society of San Diego at the Maui Bird Conservation Center at Olinda and the Keauhou Bird Conservation Center on the Big Island .Nēnē was listed as an endangered species in 1967 under the Federal Endangered Species Act.

All these cliff dwelling birds provide a challenge to amateur photographers like me. I used burst mode on my camera, taking 5-6 quick photos in succession, hoping to get one good one of a flying bird, but the birds can still fly faster than I can find and focus! Of over 1,000 files, I finally reduced it down to 300 or so after several hours of serious editing. The Red-footed Booby ('A in Hawaiian) is a year round resident at the point. They really do have red feet! It is nesting season, and they were gathering sticks to take back to the nest site. We also found a few Brown Boobies, but no photos of them.

If you look up and think you see a Bald Eagle flying by, you are mistaken. The Laysan Albatross  navigates across thousands of miles of open ocean to return to their nesting grounds, mostly on remote Pacific islands. They are famous for their elaborate courtship rituals, which include sky-pointing, bill-clapping, and bowing. Moli can be seen November – July at Kīlauea Point. Wisdom, the oldest known banded bird in the wild, is a female Laysan albatross that nests within the world's largest albatross colony on Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. She is at least 66-years old and a world renowned symbol of hope for all species that depend upon the health of the ocean to survive.These albatross can both fly and sleep while flying, which is handy if you spend months and months at sea.

Just as we asked ourselves where the Frigatebirds were, they showed up, chasing a Red-footed Booby. ‘Iwa roost near Kīlauea Point but no nesting has been documented. Lacking the ability to take off from water, ‘iwa snatch prey from the ocean surface using their long, hooked bills. Their prey primarily consist of fish and squid. Juveniles and adults often obtain food by piracy from boobies, tropicbirds, and shearwaters. ‘Iwa often supplement their diet by this type of harassment. 'Iwas means pirate we were told, making it a good name for them.

Hawaii has both the Red-tailed and White-tailed Tropicbird, but I thought we were seeing only the White-tails. The tails of either bird are long, skinny, and hard to see in the air. To my surprise, I learned that the Red-tails also have bright red beaks as well, so I may have seen more of them than the others. In Hawaiian they are called Koa‘e‘ula. Hawaii has no gulls, even though many birds resemble them here.