This is our fourth and final post about our trip and describes our last three days on the big island of Hawaii.

On our eighth day, we drove over the saddle from our BnB in Kealakekua to the windward and wetter side to Hilo. We were fortunate to have a fair weather day for our visit. First we went to Wailoa Pond, which is part of Wailoa River State Recreation Area, to check out the birds.

Along the river, we saw a Wandering Tattler, a medium-sized shorebird that is a common winter migrant. It breeds in Alaska and the Yukon.

From there, we drove about five minutes north to Liliuokalani Gardens to enjoy the scenery and views. This Japanese Garden was dedicated to Hawaii’s first Japanese immigrants who worked the sugar cane fields.

We almost didn’t start a “list” because the bird life was sparse, but then we got a good view of this Great Frigatebird and when we paid better attention, we saw twelve species of birds in our 45 minute walk.

We got one of our best views of a Spotted Dove, even though we had seen many throughout the trip. These doves were introduced from Asia in the mid-1800s for food and in the 1900s for game. They are about the size of a Mourning Dove.

We also watched a mongoose hunting in the grass. Mongooses were brought from India with the idea that they would control rats. Unfortunately mongooses hunt in the day and the rats are active at night. The mongoose loves to eat bird eggs, which is devastating for ground dwelling birds. We saw many mongooses as well as some feral cats on our trip.

Next, we drove north on the Belt Road to Laupahoehoe Point Beach Park. The tide was coming in and it was fascinating watching the waves crash against the rocks. The park has a memorial to commemorate the lives that were lost in April of 1946 when a tsunami hit the community. The tsunami waves destroyed the schoolhouse, killing the teacher and twenty-five students. In all, 159 people died in the catastrophe. Hawaii now has a tsunami warning system in place.

The next day, we drove to the outskirts of Waikoloa, to the skatepark. While that seems like a strange place to go birding, the park also included a lush soccer field, a derelict baseball diamond, and a trail through the shrubs along the fence which were all good habitat for birds.

We saw a pair of Chestnut-bellied Sandgrouse, which are native to Africa and India, but they flew off before Doug could get a photo. Our bonus bird was a Rosy-faced Lovebird that perched politely for its photo. A lovebird is a short-tailed parrot native to southwestern Africa. It’s a common pet species, so escapees may occur anywhere. Hawaii and Arizona have feral populations. It was the first time that we had seen one in the wild.

Eurasian Skylarks are common on grassy mountain slopes on the island of Hawaii and in this case, an unused soccer field. The species is common throughout Europe and Asia and was introduced to Hawaii in 1865.

On our last day, we left our BnB in the morning and didn’t need to be at the airport until after dinner. So we went on a road tour to North Kohala. We stopped at Lapakahi State Historical Park and wandered down a trail to a view of the ocean. The state park is on the site of an old Hawaiian village.

We stopped a few miles north at Kapa’a Beach County Park and watched the waves crash against the rocky shore while we ate our lunch. Then we continued along the tip of the island to the end of the road at the lookout for Pololu Valley. Our guidebook gave this spot a “Real Gem” rating and in the description said that if you took the trail down to the black lava sand beach in mid-week, you might have the beach to yourself. This was definitely not the case. The overlook was a crowded parking lot controlled by volunteers who kept the lot for people who were just looking at the view. If you wanted to hike down to the beach, you needed to park along the side of the narrow road. At least twenty vehicles were parked along there. We chose to park at the overlook and take a photo from the curb in front of the jeep. Too many people for our liking! But a beautiful view.

We backtracked to the small town of Kapa’au, where every restaurant and cafe seemed busy, so at least all the tourists were helping the local economy. A statue of King Kamehameha the Great is in a park in this small town. This statue is a lot like the one standing in front of the Judiciary building in Honolulu. Back in 1878, the statue was being shipped from Paris when the ship and cargo was lost at sea. The Hawaiian Legislature used the insurance money to order a new one. Sometime later, the captain of the wrecked ship saw the lost statue in Port Stanley where someone had salvaged it. He bought it and sent it to Hawaii. The broken arm was repaired and it now stands in this park near to the birthplace of King Kamehameha I. In ancient times, the king wore a cape made of bird feathers. Imagine how many Amakihi birds would have perished to provide all those feathers!

We took the Kohala Mountain Road south to the city of Waimea. Waimea is at 2,600 feet so it was cool enough for us to be comfortable. It was only mid-afternoon and we had nowhere that we had to be, so we found a pretty park (Waimea Nature Park) and wandered around looking at birds. There were beautiful hibiscus bushes. (And our blog from a trip to Hawaii should include at least one flower photo.)

From Waimea, we drove west to the coast. We spent about two hours sitting around in the shade at Spencer Beach. We had our a dinner of sushi, sitting at a picnic table, then changed into our travelling clothes and headed to the airport.

We arrived at the airport before 7 pm and our flight left at 10:30. The open air terminal was comfortable, so all there was left to do was wait. Our overnight flight to Phoenix arrived about 45 minutes early, because of a strong tail wind. Another couple of hours driving and we were home.

We thoroughly enjoyed our ten day trip to the big island of Hawaii. Our intention was to see as many birds as we could and the trip met our expectations. We were pleased at how much Hawaiian history we learned; the historic parks were well situated for bird watching and we picked up some history along the way.

Our day with a birding guide was amazing and we saw birds that we couldn’t have seen on our own. However, we were pleasantly surprised how we could find and identify so many other species with the help of our guidebook and iBird app. We used eBird to find hotspots as well as to see recent reports. Also on our first day birding, we met a birder from Oregon who birded regularly on Hawaii and told us about some good spots to explore.

Our resources for birds:

Hawaii Audubon Society, Hawaii’s Birds (2020) http://www.hawaiiaudubon.org: A great book to look at cover to cover to familiarize yourself with the possible species. Most of the extra information that we included about a species came from this guide.

iBird Hawaii, an Interactive Field Guide to Birds, version 10.06: An iPhone app. By using the search function and choosing different filters, we could find the bird we were looking at in the field quickly. For example: we chose the island (Hawaii), and primary color (yellow) to give us five birds that we could look at with more detail.

The guidebook that we used and would recommend:

Doughty, Andrew. Hawaii the Big Island Revealed: the ultimate guidebook, 11th edition. Wizard Publications, Inc. 2022.

Perhaps you’ll plan a trip to Hawaii and this post will be helpful. Even if you don’t, we hope you have enjoyed our travelogue. In a few weeks, we’ll be posting about our February in Arizona.

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