I managed to stay in the good graces of my sister for another year, so I was invited back to her little paradise retreat near Keaau, on the east side of Hawaii’s Big Island. This year I stayed a month, from mid-January to mid-February, dodging the worst of the Montana winter. It was another memorable visit chasing native Hawaiian birds, witnessing Episode 4 of the Kilauea eruption, watching for humpback whales, and soaking in the warm aloha of the Big Island.
Today’s DC is simply a photojournal of my trip, mostly highlighting native birds of the Big Island, with a few other images tossed in for fun, including that awe-inspiring eruption!
Sister J lives a short bike ride to the Pacific Ocean. This east side of the Big Island is rimmed with rugged 30 to 50-foot lava bluffs formed by past eruptions of Kilauea volcano, which actively stirs, steams, and spouts some 30 miles uphill to the west. These volcanic bluffs serve as colonial nesting sites for the Black Noddy, a marine tern found on islands of the tropics and subtropics. The vantage from atop the bluffs offered excellent viewing of Black Noddies and all their lively behaviors. Just be sure to mind the edge!
The lava bluffs at Paradise Cliffs, a great place to see Black Noddies, sea turtles, humpback whales, and rainbows.
Black Noddies (noio in Hawaiian) are very gregarious birds, roosting and nesting in dense colonies on ledges and crevices of volcanic cliffs and sea caves. In other parts of their range, they nest on trees or shrubs. My observations seemed to coincide with one of their two breeding cycles each year, what I’d describe as pair formation and nest-building.
As far as field identification, Black Noddies are medium-sized seabirds with slender wings, a wedge-shaped tail, and slightly down-curved black bill. Both adult sexes are sooty black with a white cap. Juvenile plumage is similar, but the white cap is sharply demarcated from the darker hindneck. A white “crescent” on the lower eye rim is very distinct across age and sex. The Black Noddy subspecies on the Big Island is unique in having bright orange legs and feet. Their flight is swift and direct, with rapid wing beats; they rarely soar.
“Elegant” is my first impression of the Black Noddy (Anous minutus).
After days of practice, I finally got my Appy mojo and figured out how to take decent bird-in-flight photos of these graceful, fast-flying fighter pilots!
Adult Noddy against a sparkling aquamarine ocean.
Flying into the cliff past a patch of wave-thrashed seaweed.
A juvenile Black Noddy: the white on head has a more abrupt demarcation at the neck. Colonies contain both breeding and nonbreeding birds. Age at first breeding is usually 3 years.
Black Noddies are remarkably camouflaged to the black, brown, and mauve hues of their volcanic cliff-nesting sites.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t discuss how the “Noddy” got its name. According to some, the name refers to the “nodding display” that is a common part of courtship behavior. Other lore suggests that sailors called them “noddies” (meaning “simpletons”) because the birds can be easily caught by hand when on the nest. Then there is the Noddy’s genus name, Anous — meaning “unmindful” in Greek, which gives the sailors’ tale some, er, sea legs. Feel free to pick your favorite version!
Not until I got home and got my images up on the desktop did I see that some of my BIF photos captured nest-building behavior. Once a pair selects a nest site, the male ventures out to collect a single piece of nest material floating on the ocean surface. This might be pliant leaves, grass, twigs, flowers, seaweed, or feathers. Each piece is delivered to the female, who does most of the nest-building. Cliff nests are bulky, flat-topped, and bracket-shaped, built against vertical rock.
A Black Noddy returns to the nest site with a single needle-like leaf of Casuarina equisetifolia, or Common Ironwood, a weedy and invasive nonnative tree common to coastal Hawaii.
Incoming with a fine piece of seaweed.
Barely snapped this photo of a Black Noddy zooming in to his nest site with a seaweed gift.
I got out a few times to bird in my favorite Big Island habitat, the montane wet forests and kipukas surrounding Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. Kipukas are land surrounded by lava flows. These isolated forest remnants often contain old growth stands of native ‘ōhi‘a lehua and koa trees, which are preferred habitat for many native Hawaiian birds, including several endemic honeycreepers.
View from a kipuka on the southeast slope of Mauna Kea, surrounded by the early morning song of ‘apapane, i’iwi, and ʻōmaʻo.
A matriarch ‘ōhi‘a lehua tree, perhaps 1,000 years old and certainly the largest I’ve ever seen; at Hakalau National Wildlife Refuge.
The ‘apapane is an important pollinator of ‘ōhi‘a lehua. ‘Apapane is one of the most abundant and widespread of the Hawaiian honeycreepers.
‘Apapane are the same deep rich red as the ‘ōhi‘a flowers they nectar on.
A pair of ‘apapane at Hakalau NWR.
My spirit bird, the i’iwi — primarily a nectar-eater with vocalizations that sound like a rusty gate opening. I’iwi is state-listed as Endangered on O‘ahu, Moloka‘i, Lāna‘i, but not on the Big Island.
The spectacular i’iwi — an important heritage symbol to Hawaiians.
Female Hawai‘i ‘ākepa, a small insectivorous honeycreeper that is federally and state-listed Endangered. As an obligate cavity nester, she requires the natural cavities found in old-growth ‘ōhi‘a and koa trees.
A preening male Hawai‘i ‘ākepa. After three years, males obtain their striking bright orange adult plumage. Federally and state-endangered.
The Hawai‘i ‘amakihi is a small, generalist Hawaiian honeycreeper. Males are yellow-green with a black mask; females are duller in color.
The ‘akiapōlā‘au is a chunky Hawaiian honeycreeper found only on the island of Hawai‘i. They are known for their specialized bills, which have a long, decurved upper mandible and a short woodpecker-like lower mandible. ‘Aki’s are federally and state-listed Endangered.
Nēnē, the Hawaiian Goose. Evolved long ago from an errant Canada Goose, nēnē are more terrestrial and have longer legs and less webbing between their toes, which likely facilitates walking on lava flows. They are federally listed as Threatened and state-listed as Endangered.
Another of my favorites, the Hawaiʻi ʻelepaio — a member of the Monarch Flycatcher family. The ʻelepaio is inquisitive and endearing like a chickadee. Of course, their song sounds like “cutey-pi-o!” Their conservation status on the Big Island is ranked Vulnerable.
The ‘ōma‘o — also known as Hawaiian Thrush — is endemic to the island of Hawai‘i. The montane wet forests they inhabit support many species of fruit-bearing shrubs and trees. NatureServe gives them a heritage ranking of Vulnerable. ‘Ōma‘o have a wide repertoire of vocalizations!
Introduced to Hawaii in 1910 from its native China and Himalayas, the Red-billed Leiothrix has naturalized in forested habitats of Hawaii. Though it may be a beautiful bird, the Leiothrix is a known vector of avian malaria and implicated in the decline and extinction of some endemic Hawaiian forest birds such as the honeycreepers.
On January 15th, despite the Kilauea eruption being paused, Sister J and I day-tripped up to Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park to soak in the site’s magical mana. As we were hiking the Kau Desert Trail on the north rim of the caldera, Sister J points to a massive fountain of lava visible from our path on the rim. Pele, the Volcano Goddess, stirred her digging stick and sent us a new flow of lava — Episode 4 of the eruption that began December 23, 2024. The most recent eruption was Episode 18, now paused. Here’s a link to the USGS livestream.
Our first look at Episode 4 from the north rim. Whoa!
We decided to move to the Keanakako’i Lookout at the southeast end of the caldera, giving us a straight line-of-sight view to the active vents. The spectacle was nothing short of epic.
From the overlook, the eruption looked a bit like blazing dragon eyes.
See the tiny white dots inside the yellow circles?
I was not expecting to see several White-tailed Tropicbirds (koaʻe kea) soaring around the caldera. These tern-like seabirds are the most pelagic member of the Pelican family, but nest on oceanic islands like Hawaii. They nest on the rocky, vertical walls of Halemaumau Crater and are often observed riding thermal updrafts above the eruptive gas plumes. Everything about the tropicbirds’ presence there — their miniscule scale to the landscape, their feathered fragility near that inferno, their pristine white plumage against the smudgy black lava — gave me chills of awe and wonder.
A pair of White-tailed Tropicbirds soar the thermals in Halemaumau Crater, the site of Kilauea volcano.
Well, thanks for joining this Dawn Chorus today! Piecing this journal together was a welcome immersion back into the joy and pleasure of birding the Big Island.
Now let’s hear from YOU!
What birds are showing up in your neck of the woods?
