By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

While I was in the South Seas, my phone was ringing off the hook. Numerous people left messages of vital importance, all on the same subject. Can you guess what was this topic of burning concern?

The governor's race? The University of Hawai'i Rainbow Warriors' game with BYU? Of course not. It was the return of the kolea from Alaska.

Forty-five sightings came in. They provide important information on the mysterious lifestyle of this visitor who has been coming here for tens of thousands of years.

For one thing, it is obvious now that kolea don't fly down from Alaska in one big flock. Or even a few big flocks that prompt us to say, "The kolea are back." First sightings reported on my phone recorder and my e-mail occurred at various locations between July 24 and Aug. 21.

That's right, July 24. Elizabeth R. Martin saw a kolea at Hickam Air Force Base.

We generally expect kolea to return about Aug. 8. Obviously, if a bird feels like leaving two weeks early, there's nothing to stop it. Other kolea apparently wait a while.

The Our Honolulu Kolea Survey dovetails nicely with the Kolea Watch founded a couple of years ago by Gus Bodner, a UH graduate student. Kolea Watch reported eight sightings between Aug. 1 and Aug. 25.

Bodner got some interesting information from kolea watchers in Australia where the seasons are the opposite of Hawai'i. There, the birds start arriving from Siberia in October, which is the beginning of summer in Australia. Most sightings occur in February and March.

However, kolea don't stay as long in Australia as they do in Hawai'i. They generally stay in Australia for six months compared with eight and a half months here.

Bodner thinks the kolea don't stay as long in Australia because they spend more time en route from Siberia. They stop at various points in Asia and rest along the way. Kolea flying to Hawai'i from Alaska have to make it nonstop or swim.

Flight time remains the biggest mystery about kolea. Radios attached to kolea before they fly back to Alaska have provided a little information about flying time. The shortest documented time between a radio report in Hawai'i and a radio report in Alaska about the same bird is now 70 hours.

However, the bird must have stopped to talk story somewhere along the line in southern Alaska before reporting in at his nest up in Nome. Scientists believe kolea fly at 60 miles an hour. The distance between Nome, Alaska, and Kaua'i is about 2,500 miles. At 60 miles an hour that's a little less than 42 hours flying time.

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-0873.