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View From Here - Hawaii Travel Blog - Birdwatching

Total Number of Entries - 73
  • Midway Albatross Count: A Hui Hou.

    Destination: Hawaii Island, Kauai, Maui, Oahu

    Four days have passed since I bid a hui hou to Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, and the experience is slipping away like a dream upon waking, or, more appropriately, like an albatross flying off into the sunset.  Midway is fading from an everyday reality into some ethereal event.  I find it hard to conjure up in my mind the sounds of hundreds of thousands of dancing, bill-clacking, sky-mooing, cooing, trusting albatrosses?  Did I really crawl through ropey naupaka bushes and dig Bonin petrels out of crushed burrows?  Can the two-week experience already be over?

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  • Midway Albatross Count: Day 14

    Destination: Hawaii Island, Kauai, Maui, Oahu

    A Hui Ho!

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  • Midway Albatross Count: Day 13

    Destination: Hawaii Island, Kauai, Maui, Oahu

    Capturing pictures of albatrosses in flight is not easy with my Canon G9 pocket camera, as much as I love its convenience and quality. “Slow” is an apt description of the focusing speed—and, hence, lag—between the time when I depress the shutter button and when the shutter actually takes the picture. Albatross simply fly too fast for my camera to focus.  So, I get a lot of these kinds of pictures.

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  • Midway Albatross Count: Day 12

    Destination: Hawaii Island, Kauai, Maui, Oahu

    We may not get weekends off, but we albatross counters do get Christmas Day off. The serious birders, however, participated in the Audubon Society’s 109th annual Christmas Bird Count today.  I opted to go snorkeling.

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  • Midway Albatross Count: Day 11

    Destination: Hawaii Island, Kauai, Maui, Oahu

    In Carl Safina’s book “Eye of the Albatross,” one of the researchers stationed on another remote island in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, Laysan, told Safina, “The island becomes your world. You almost don’t want to know what’s going on outside.” After 11 days, I feel the same way. Caroline Kennedy is running for senator? Hmm. A reporter threw a shoe at President Bush? Really? The University of Hawaii football team was trounced by Notre Dame. Too bad. It’s snowing in Chicago? So.

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  • Midway Albatross Count: Day 10

    Destination: Hawaii Island, Kauai, Maui, Oahu

    Finally, sun.  Why is everyone so much more cheerful when the sun is shining?  That includes the birds.  They no longer tuck their heads under their wings like they did when it was so windy and rainy.  Like us, they are soaking up the rays.

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  • Midway Albatross Count: Day 9

    Destination: Hawaii Island, Kauai, Maui, Oahu

    It’s time to talk about the trash. More specifically, the plastic. Just about every albatross nest site here on Midway has bits of plastic in it. Albatross use whatever is within reaching distance of their nest to build the home for their egg. In the ironwood forests, I see nests built up with tiny pine cones. In the fields with verbesina, I see nests built up with sticks of the invasive weed. Near the beach, it’s sand. On the side of the runway, it’s tiny bits of gravel. Almost all albatrosses use some amount of plastic to build their nests.

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  • Midway Albatross Count: Day 8

    Destination: Hawaii Island, Kauai, Maui, Oahu

     

    As I stepped out of the shower, I heard a rap at the door and quickly slipped into some clothes. When I opened the door, the threshold stood empty. There was no one there. As I stared at empty space, I heard the sound again. Knock. Knock. Knock.

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  • Midway Albatross Count: Day7

    Destination: Hawaii Island, Kauai, Maui, Oahu

    One week down; one week to go. Today, we biked to the Empire Café and received good news.  (Of course, the fact that it wasn’t raining at the time and the winds had backed off to 20 knots was already good news.)

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  • Midway Albatross Count: Day 6

    Destination: Hawaii Island, Kauai, Maui, Oahu

    Still rainy.  Still windy.  Still a whole lotta birds to count.

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