Posted on: Sunday, August 8, 2004
OUR HONOLULU
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By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist
The kolea are coming back from Alaska on storm winds this year. My phone started to ring last week and e-mail messages poured in from the Neighbor Islands. Mike Pacheco, a science teacher at Hilo High School, stood at his window in Ninole on the Hamakua Coast and reported a kolea arrival on the fly Wednesday during the storm.
"This morning I saw four groups of three kolea go by, flying due south at treetop level," he said on the phone. "The wind is blowing 20 to 30 knots with gusts up to 50 knots. It's really steaming out there. My electricity is out. Wait, there goes another group of three. They're adults riding the north wind."
Kolea watching doesn't get much better than that. Pacheco, who crewed on the voyaging canoe Makali'i, said his son, Kairos, could recognize a kolea at age 2. But Pacheco hasn't a clue why the homecoming plover split up into groups of three.
"Maybe they peel off from the flock as they close in on Hawai'i," he speculated. "Like they gather to go back. We have a winding, 2-mile road down to the highway. Last year, I watched two kolea take off from the road. Then two joined them and two more. They spiraled higher and higher like 'io (the Hawaiian hawk) until 20 or 25 had joined the group."
Ed Michelman • Special to The Advertiser Some of them were fluffed up. It looked to me like they were resting. I got within 50 yards of them when they flew up in a flock and headed north for a quarter-mile before they landed. Do you suppose kolea spread out in small flocks like that to find their territories?
It seems to me the early birds are a little ahead of schedule this year. The first sighting came on July 23 from an anonymous caller at the O'ahu Country Club who said he saw two kolea on the No. 2 green.
On July 29, Sue and Allen Miyahara saw two fat, adult golden plover at about 1 p.m. on the University of Hawai'i campus.
I counted 10 kolea in Ala Wai Park on Aug. 5. By Aug. 6 last year, my count in Ala Wai Park had been up to only half a dozen.
Kolea have also returned to Ko Olina, says retired Marine Bob Duffy.
Hawai'i's champion, homegrown kolea counter is Lenny Penn, a security guard at National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
On Tuesday, he saw his first kolea of the season. He tossed it some bread and it came running, so it's a returnee. On Wednesday, he counted 20 kolea in the wind and rain. But Gertrude, his girlfriend, wasn't there. He knows her by her jewelry, a blue-and-white band on one leg and a silver band on the other.
You see, Gertrude is sweet on Lenny. Every time she comes back from Alaska, they get together again. But she's wising up. After he caught her in a net to band her, she doesn't come as close anymore.
From North Kohala, Ed Michelman reports that a newly arrived kolea in his yard took on an obnoxious myna bird on Thursday and won. He sent along a photo to prove it. Michelman said a bully myna chased away the first kolea to return this year. A few minutes later, the kolea came back with two buddies, whereupon the myna hightailed it to safety.
Here's another intriguing tale about kolea that associates it in Hawaiian legend with singing snails. Lopaka Kapanui at the Kawaiaha'o School tipped me off about it. It turns out that singing snails call to kolea and other birds at night to bring them water. Kapanui said the singing of the snails in the forest sound like crickets chirping.
The grande dame of Hawaiian hula, Nona Beamer, set the ancient chant of the singing snails to music. The lyrics go like this, "Little bird, little bird, go down to the stream, sip the sweet nectar from the akolea fern." Snails were an early life form in Hawai'i. To be associated with snails in Hawaiian legend probably means that kolea have been flying to Hawai'i from Alaska for eons.
Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.
I also saw my first kolea of this season in a group of three. It was on July 30 in a field at Ala Wai Park. They hung around until the regulars came, then disappeared. Last Thursday, five kolea were lined up in a row along the baseline of a baseball diamond behind Kaimuki High School.
These three kolea have just won a battle with a myna bird who tried to kick them off their winter vacation property in North Kohala.
