Hot Water and the Cauliflower Coral

    It's Saturday morning, the last day of August, and the canoes in the Lili'uokalani canoe are paddling down the Kona coast.  We are watching from our lanai, roughly a mile away.  We used to go down to the Keahou Beach Hotel to watch the biggest outrigger canoe race in the world.  Sandra and I would

watch the race from the ocean front lanai/bar.  Those were the days.  This passing year noted the final demolition of that Kona landmark.

    Over the past week we have had some fine snorkeling and ferreted out a life species.  I'll highlight that observation later in the blog.  About nine days ago, the day before we drove up to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, we went north and snorkeled with Peter and Marla at the Mauna Lani.  The hotel is still closed for renovation, but Black Sand Beach 49 remains open for business.

    It was a beautiful morning at the Mauna Lani and water in the bay, surrounded by volcanic cliffs, was warm and fairly clear.  And here is the main point of this blog.  We are now in the late days of summer 2019, the days when hot water will cause the coral to expel its zooanthellae, the symbiotic algae that creates energy for the polyps.  When this happens, the coral "bleaches".  The algae gives the coral its color, much like a dollop of Pappy Van Winkle's gives some color to the branch.  When
the algae is gone, the coral dies in short order.   The water temperature is within the safety range for the coral.

Sandra's Totem, the Scribbled Filefish.  December 2013, Kailua Bay

    I don't know what happens if you take the Pappy Van Winkle's out of Lucian Connally's branch. At the minimum you'll have one pissed off old sheriff.

    2015 was the year the coral died in Hawaii.  If you refer back to the blogs of 2016 you will find that in many of our favorite locations there was universal desolation among the cauliflower coral.  It is the opinion of the editorial staff here at the blog, that this was an unprecedented situation; marine biologists had never seen anything like it.  It is with great joy that I can report that there is dramatically more Pocillopora coral today than we had any right to expect only three short years later.

    As we have said countless times, its hard to overstate the importance of this genus to the Hawaiian environment as a whole and specifically to our reef fish.  Several species of butterflyfish, parrotfish and others rely on coral polyps for their daily bread.  The nursery function of branching coral is obvious.  And then we have species that rely on these corals absolutely.  If you don't have a Pocillopora coral, you will not find a speckled scorpionfish or a coral croucher.  On this day at the

A nice pair of Teardrops in the clear water of BSB 49.

Mauna Lani I spotted a croucher and two pairs of speckled scorpions.  And not a single bleached coral.

   Before moving on, I will mention that Sandra saw the fish of the day, a scribbled filefish that swam away before she could show it to the rest of us. Although I missed Mr. Scribble, I was able to take a few nice pictures of common fish in the clear water.

    A few days ago, I was dropped off at the pier.  It was Wednesday, cruise ship day, and the beach in front of the King Kam Hotel was teeming with tourists and paddlers preparing for the Lili'uokalani
races. Once out past the jetty, the only company I had was the Marian, the glass bottom boat that sails from the pier.  Happily, I reconnoitered the cauliflower in front of Paul Allen's lagoon and on my third dive I spotted the coral croucher.  The legend lives on.

A Hawaiian Swimming Crab harbouring in a P. meandrina

    The Marian was determined to shadow my efforts, so not wishing to end up in the business end of a propeller, I concentrated my efforts in the small bay.  Two years ago, I would have had no Pocillopora coral to play with.  On this day there were several.  In a smaller meandrina I spotted some sort of shell fish.  Closer examination revealed  a crab, much larger than your average guard crab tucked in between the leaves. A cooperative fellow, instead of retreating this guy turned towards me and I was able to get the face on shot you see here.

     Note the pinching fingers: black stripes with white tips. Its one thing to get a playful pinch from a small hermit, but it would be foolish for a snorkeler to stick his fingers next to those serious claws.  Repairing to the critter book back at the ranch, I discovered that this was a Hawaiian swimming crab.  The Great Oz notes that this crab is nocturnal but it can sometimes be seen during the day in the branches of a   Pocillopora coral.  And there you have it.

   The water remains cool, the cauliflower coral lives and I have a life crab.  I say a little prayer every day for cooler water.  So far so good.

Walt Longmire and Lucian Connally.  Keep clear of the Van Winkle's in Absaroka County

The Kamehameha Butterfly

   Last week, as I was preparing for my display of Hawaiian butterflies at the Kailua Kona library, I ran into a stumbling block.  Sandra and I have seen relatively few species of butterflies and moths in

Dan Rubinoff working on his Rorschach blots. 

West Hawaii.  I believe the number is four, not counting the little gray moth that sneaks into the house and eats holes in my sweater.  Your probably wondering, "What the hell does he need a sweater for in Hawaii?"

  I had created paper mache models of three of the Kona four, monarch, black witch, Asian swallowtail and orange sulfur) and also the two endemics, Kamehameha and Blackburn's blue, which is also known as Hawaiian blue and Koa.  And also the gulf fritillary, which I knew people had seen on this island, although I had not been so lucky.  Yet.

    At this point I was flummoxed, stymied, if you will.  I'm still at work on a group of orange sulfur butterflies, but that ship will sail shortly, and then what will I do next?  I would really like to present butterflies that someone might see here on the Big island...there must be more than four.

  Sandra in front of dodonea and koa.  Can the butterflies be far behind?

   To solve this problem, I turned to the internet and found contact information for professors at UH Hilo and Manoa.  My questions were:  1. What butterflies and moths actually occur on the island of Hawaii that I can model for the display? and 2. Is it possible that I can see any of these butterflies and moths?

    First to write back was Bob Thomson from Manoa.  In a cordial reply, he said that he didn't know much about butterflies, but he knew just the man, Dan Rubinoff, also a professor at Manoa.  Off went an email to Dr. Rubinoff.

    As it turns out, Dan Rubinoff is a true specialist in butterflies.  He recommended the University of Hawaii Insect Museum, a real place, but also a digital site which he and his students have created.  At the digital museum, I not only found pictures of a few insects, but also a link to the Pulelehua Project, an effort to support the dwindling numbers of the Kamehameha butterfly.  If you haven't guessed,

A male Kamehameha butterfly.  Courtesy of the Pulelehua Project

pulelehua is Hawaiian for butterfly. 

   Trolling on you tube that evening, we happened upon this video starring the Kamehameha Butterfly and Dan Rubinoff:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a378SO6K2g

  Dan encouraged us to go to the Bird Park at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park to look for the two endemic species.  He listed the plants that the blue employs as hosts, koa and dodonea   In the process, he pointed out something that I had an inkling about, but did not have firmly in my mind.
Very much like a given species of anemone fish has an obligatory relationship with one or two species of giant anemone, butterflies are usually tied to a single host species of plant.  They lay their eggs on that plant and  their caterpillars eat those leaves voraciously, subsequently becoming  butterflies

    Curiously, the butterflies themselves are dainty eaters.  They don't have mouth parts, per se, but

Our kamehmeha butterfly rests on a māmaki leaf. A classic host plant.

rather a proboscis through which they suck up nutrition.  The blue eats various flower nectars while the Kamehameha sucks koa sap.  

   Next time I need to talk some trash, I'm going to say," Aw, ya mudda sucks koa sap."

    This relationship between butterflies and their hosts has developed over a very long period of time.  Unfortunately, the butterflies use species of plants that frequently are not treasured as ornamental plants in one's yard.  Aka weeds.  Hence, as civilization has encroached on the wild forests and meadows, supplanting these with asphalt, houses and yards of grass and beds of roses, we have been destroying butterfly habitat, specifically the plants that feed caterpillars.   It isn't only the Kamehameha butterfly that is affected in this way.

The Kamehameha looks down at us

   On the other hand, some butterflies employ a host that us humans find desirable.  One of these is the gulf fritillary.  That butterfly lays its eggs on passion fruit, known in these very Sandwich Islands as  lilikoi.  The gulf frit is native to the Caribbean and Florida, but happily lives in Hawaii, home of passion orange guava.  Is POG the state beverage?  If not, it ought to be. Next time you are plucking a lilikoi for your evening beverage, look under the leaves for some tiny caterpillars.  That ought to whet your appetite!

   Appreciating the opportunity to see a new species, one so endearing that it bears the crown of the Hawaii State Insect, Sandra and I set off yesterday morning for the volcano.  Since there is so much trouble on the saddle road with the thirty meter telescope protest, we took the southern route through Na'alehu, arriving at the bird park about 9:30 in the morning.  

   We had studied both the butterflies and the host plants on the internet; at the beginning of the trail we identified both koa and dodonea.  

kahili ginger in HVNP.  Photo Sandra Gray

    Setting off on the 1.5 mile loop, we were immediately in the presence of a large black witch moth which zipped up and down the trail.  Another hundred yards up the trail and we saw a fast moving orange butterfly.  It was 20% smaller and a darker shade of orange than the monarch, which,being the common orange butterfly of Casa Ono, serves as our standard.  It flew around us for a minute and then landed on a tree about ten feet away.  I was within the close focus of my binoculars, so my sighting was eyes only.  Sandra was a few feet behind me and was able to get an excellent look through the Swarofskis. 

   I got a wonderful look at the underside of the back wing.  If you are not used to identifying orange butterflies of the genus Vanessa, this constitutes a surprise. In all these Vanessa butterflies, that back underside wing looks like a set of feathers, mostly in shades of brown and gray.  This Kamehameha had some blue occuli.  In its own way rather attractive. There are four other members of the genus vanessa on Hawaii.  Go to the Pulelehua Project site and look at "look alike species"  google images has even prettier pictures of these species in resting position, that is, with the wings folded up, showing off that back outer wing.

A close up of the kahili ginger blossom.

  We then went an hour without seeing another butterfly.  We did see a few birds, Kalij pheasant, northern cardinal and white eye.  We don't need to leave our yard to notch those species.  Luckily the weather was pleasant, the trail was easy and the company was excellent.  We walked  a little over a mile in that hour and were nearing the end of the trail when we saw our second orange butterfly.  This Kamehameha was far more cooperative, flying quite close to us, showing off the brown hairs that extend like a fan over the upper wings.   

    He lit on a leaf about five feet away.  Sandra forced the camera into my hands and I started snapping away and moving closer.  He stayed put for about half a minute and  I got within about three feet.  Given the quality of my pictures, I would have been better off just watching this magnificent and rare creature.  But if you look, there can be no question but that this was a Kamehameha butterfly.  

  After the last photo, he took off and circled for a short while and then perched face down on a branch. I think that while I was nabbing one more picture he was checking me out.  Having heard that my mother sucks koa sap, he might have been considering giving me a the taste test with his tiny proboscis.

Hawaii Coat of Arms.  Kahili on the right

   Following our butterfly hike, we went into the national park and poked around some spots that looked promising for the blue butterfly.  We had no luck with the butterfly but did see a gazillion of these fancy flowers, the kahili ginger.  As you may recall, a kahili is the standard carried by the attendant of an ali'i, basically a long staff surmounted with a cone of feathers.  Curiously, the most magnificent stands of kahili ginger were out on the highway, not in the park.

    A quick note on the park.  In spite of the cessation of eruptions, a surprising number of things remain closed.  This includes the Jagger Museum and the Thurston Lava Tubes.   The latter is associated with an area good for birding and it might have yielded on of those blue butterflies.  Maybe next time.

jeff

     Just before we left on our trip to the volcano, I received a reply from my UH Hilo correspondent.  Patrick Hart added a beautiful black and white butterfly, the citrus swallowtail, to my to do list.  This

Citrus Swallowtail  Papilio demodicus

magnificent butterfly, which hails from sub-Saharan Africa, is now seen  by Dr. Hart around Hilo.  This butterfly uses citrus trees as its host plant.  Hence the wikipedia site devoted to the species is more about controlling than attracting it. this black beauty can lay its eggs on my lemon tree whenever it wants!

   Encouragingly, Dr. Hart noted that the Kamehameha butterfly is seen in Hilo, though infrequently.  The city fathers need  to plant more koa and mamaki in the public gardens.  Is it possible to encourage home gardeners in the use of these species?

   Both Patrick and Dan Rubinoff encouraged me to leave a light on at night in hopes of attracting various moths.  You can look forward to a model of the oleander hawk moth, which is reputed to be common in Kona.  
   

And what sort of garden do you come from, my dear?   Why I don't come from any garden.

The Kilauea Iki Overlook  Photo by Sandra Gray

 

An August Outing to the Pier and the Truth about Fugu

     Yesterday I went snorkeling at the Kailua pier.  The village was swarming with hordes of well groomed tourists.  This was surprising, since the last week has been very quiet here with little traffic

Our beloved beach community under a bruised August sky.

and a paucity of visitors.  We wondered if something was going on, but saw no signs of an event.  One was left with that question posed in children's book about fire engines...Where did they come from?  Where are they going?  I guess that's two questions.

    Anyway, the reason Sandra was dropping me off at the pier, aside from the fact that I can't get enough time swimming in the deep blue sea, was that she was assisting her friend Charlot at the library.  Charlot was teaching a group of ten ladies how to crochet.  Which I guess makes my sweetie the assistant crochet meister.  It also gave me an hour and a half to enjoy the warm summer ocean.

   Under a bruised sky, the type you read about in a creepy Steven King novel, there was a modicum of locals and a very few tourists cavorting in the shallows on the Ironman side of the pier.  You will

The Stripe Belly Puffer, Kailua Pier August 2019

recall that a week ago when I snorkeled this side, the water was virtually opaque.  Yesterday, it was fairly clear, with good visibility up to ten feet.  The lack of sun made my photographic subjects less vibrant, but at least one could see the fish.

  Around the fourth swim buoy I spotted a pair of stripe belly puffers about ten feet down.   One was rather large and the other about half that size. This is a species that more frequently appears singly.  With that in mind, I nabbed a picture of the duo.  They were on the bottom at this point and the picture is marginal.  I dove the big guy and I am including his picture here. 

   While I was floating in the warm water, I mused about puffers.  Specifically, I have been thinking about Canthigaster jacator, the Hawaiian toby.  This little puffer is fairly common at Kahalu'u, not uncommon at the pier, but much less prevalent at City of Refuge, where the water is deeper and faces the ocean directly.   Where this little puffer is super abundant is at Kawaihae harbor.  I believe it is no

Canthigaster jacator.  Kahalu'u 2018.  A moderately toxic individual.

coincidence that this puffer plus a resident porcupine fish or two, are found around those pillars.  If you are a big fan of Homer Simpson, you will hearken back to the episode where our hero insists on eating puffer fish at a sushi restaurant.  As it turns out, the sushi chef has never prepared fugu, the sushi name for puffer, before.  Homer is told too late and then spends the night contemplating his imminent demise.   Spoiler alert:  Homer survives the night.

   If one looks in John Hoover's remarkable Ultimate Guide, he notes that some C. jacator  rely on coral alone for their diet.  Thin soup for those tobies.  While others, and I'm submitting that this Group B is found at Kawaihae harbor,  eat all sorts of poisonous fouling animals like hydras and sponges.  Hence, I speculate that just like the nudibranchs that are on the high sponge diet, the pufferfish at Kawaihae are toxic to the max.  One can only assume that Homer's fugu did not come from Kawaihae. 

Now go do the fugu that you do so well.  Hedley Lamar, loosely

   Having exhausted my brain,  I continued on my swim.  There was nothing special in the deep but back inside I saw a nice pair of blacktail snapper, a lone male elegant coris and a veritable buffalo herd of teenage mutant moorish idos.  There had to be twenty idols in this group.  If you count the ones in my picture I think you come up with fourteen.. Trust me, there were at least six more.   

   The swim finished happily, no one got stabbed with a crochet needle and we all lived happily ever after.  Beware of the fugu and we will see you at the beach.  

jeff

On the fourteenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me...

On the Trial of the Painted Nudibranch

     Over the last few years I have come to the conclusion that high surf in Kona is no less likely in the summer than in the winter.  It could be that the winter storms bring larger waves, waves big enough to wash the sand from White Sands Beach.  But for the proportion of days when the surf is big enough to discourage a rocky entry at City of Refuge or Kona Makai, or cloud the water around the

Three painted nudibranchs on a blue spong.  Kawaihae Harbor August 2019

Kailua Pier, I think it is close to the same.  And, you guessed it, we are in another period of good  surfing conditions right now.   

    Regardless of the surf, I made my way down to the pier a few days ago.  It wasn't only the surf that was of concern; we are now in another very rainy period.  Up at Casa Ono we experienced four inches of rain on three alternating days. That's more than twelve inches of rain in five days!  A week or so ago, Kailua Bay made the Honolulu news, as it was closed for brown water. Woof!  This place used to be  desert, now there are bracket fungi growing on the avocado tree.

    As I arrived at the pier, there was a sweet little Japanese lady (tiny, actually) who was dressing to leave while I was putting on my swim shirt. She told me that the water wasn't too cloudy, but not too clear, either.   All in all, that was good news.

    Well, the water was a little clear near the beach, but I couldn't see the bottom when it was deeper than six feet.  I did some tooling around in the shallows before I got out, but didn't see anything of note.  As I reached the steps, I encountered a problem that may be as bad as brown water.   An insane homeless man was stumbling along pushing a bike and screaming at the voices inside his head.  I let him go on his way before completing my exit.

Painted nudibranchs, Kawaihae Harbor August 2019

    I had a nice cool shower, one of the highlights of snorkeling in the heat of the summer, and then went to change into my dry clothes.  In the restroom, the man and his bike were locked in one of the stalls, where he was continuing his loud assault on the voices.  Kona is not the sweet little beach community it once was.  Rain or shine, we have a problem.

   As the surf was persisting, the following day Sandra and I made our way up to Kawaihae Harbor. 

A Gloomy Nudibranch appears magically on the First Platform

We had checked with Hai, but he was going surfing.  Sure enough, when we arrived his jeep was in the parking lot and he was 50 yards off shore on a board.  Unfotunately for our friend, there was very little surf.  We made it down the the bay, happy to have each other to go snorkeling with.

    We spent some time around the first platform looking for Hai's small black frogfish, but seeing little of note.  At the second platform, it wasn't but a minute or so before I saw a trio of nudibranchs.  They were chubby little guys with green bodies and jaunty red rhinophores and gills.  The largest was about two centimeters long, the smallest half that.  It took me a minute, but I correctly identified them as painted nudibranchs.  This was a species that Hai had found and identified for us a couple months ago.  That animal was small and tucked away.  So poor was that sighting, that I felt guilty including it on my list.  But it did provide the incentive to study the species and file it in the memory banks.

   If we had felt a modicum of shame before, here we had delicious redemption.  These fat little fellows were going nowhere fast and I was able to take a dozen photographs.  I had forgotten my

The distinctive Banded pattern of a juvenile undulated moray.

weights in the car, so I was bobbing around just a bit more than I might have been.  Out of all those pictures I got a few that weren't too bad.  

    We scoured the second and third platforms, seeing some old friends like the wire coral goby and a couple feather duster worms, but no more nudibranchs.  After an hour or so of swimming, Sandra headed to the beach and I took one more spin around the first platform.  Right away, I found a gloomy nudibranch about two feet down, totally out in the open.  Obviously these molluscs are very compressible.  I suppose they can shelter inside sponges and various other fouling plants and animals, but it is sort of weird how they suddenly materialize.  Its almost as if Captain Kirk beams them down.

   Regardless, I nabbed a few pictures of the Gloomy, which is a very handsome nudibranch, similar in coloration to that famous mobile fish, the palette surgeon.

    Having finished with that I was just heading to the beach when I saw, about ten feet down, an undulated moray eel hunting.  The

Kawaihae Harbor, the north shore.  With water spots.

undulated might be the least common of the half dozen morays that we see during the day.  And

there is one other thing about the undulated...they bite.  This guy was sporting the distinctive pattern that John Hoover calls juvenile.  Aware of their reputation, I got a good picture of the tail and didn't get as close for a face shot as I might have.

   Apres swim we enjoyed a nice warm shower by the seaside and then made it over to the restrooms by the marina to change.  While we were there, I nabbed this sweet picture of the north end of the harbor with the tropical foliage in the background, blue water and ffluffy white clouds.   Those water spots in the sky are just what you would expect from a camera after a great morning of snorkeling.

jeff

A second look at this day's gloomy.

Snorkeling with Weights and the Gulf Fritillary

    For about the last week or so I have added a weight belt to my standard snorkeling equipment and I've been swimming with four pounds of modestly expensive lead.  The expense might surprise you, as it did me.  A weight belt and two 2 pound weights costs about as much as a reasonably good snorkel mask.

The arc eye hawkfish bemoans the loss of his pal the croucher.

    The change was driven by Hai and his fantastic nudibranch pictures; clearly his technique was improved with weights..  He lead the charge (pun intended) and now Peter and Marla are wearing weights, too.  Just sign on to onebreathkohala and you will see Peter's beautiful pictures. 

    My first day with the extra weight was at the the Paul Allen side of the pier.  It was a rough day, so it was hard to say if the extra weight had any beneficial effect.  The best fish was a super male five stripe wrasse.  He was in the turbulent water just outside the little jetty.  Everything was moving and the water was full of debris, so although I tried, I didn't get much of a picture. 

   I made it out to the coral head where the croucher resides.  There was quite a bit of surge, but I dove down and held on while the waves swept over me.  Although I have never ridden a mechanical bull, the degree of tossing back and forth must have been about the same.  I did not find the crouchers: I'm going to wait until I have one more shot before declaring their run on this coral head at an end.  Perhaps as a benefit of the weights, I was able to nab the picture you see of an arc eye hawkfish giving me the fish eye from inside the cauliflower coral.

The free floating, slightly cubist, elegant hermit crab.  Makes me want to sing My Way

    Our second outing with the lead was up to Mahukona.  We met our friends and Peter showed us his new stake out for the rock damsel.  You will recall this obscure fish, which looks somewhat like a Pacific Gregory with three light vertical stripes.  It lives in the surge zone.  This small family can be found in the boulders very near the south end of pier as it faces the ocean.  We had several good looks, but although the water was clear, the movement was extreme and the fish is furtive to the max.

   In the same area,   I spied a small triton shell about eight feet down.  With the added weight I was able to get down and snag it with ease.  Inside was a small elegant hermit crab.  He was a brave little fellow, coming all the way out of his shell and nipping at my glove with his claws.  Peter and I passed this treasure back and forth, after which I nabbed  a handful of pictures while holding the shell and crab in my gloved hand.   Two of the five pictures were in focus.  I took the best and photo shopped out the glove, recreating a little bit of shell in the

The Stocky Hawkfish and Peter's crevasse.  "Maybe he'll crash this time."

process. Some of the water looks a little cubist and the crab seems to be floating in mid-air (or water).  Nevertheless, I think its a pretty interesting result.

   The second part of this excursion involved swimming across the bay to the spot where Peter sees the gargantuan blenny.  His stake out for this fish is a lava crevice about three feet deep surrounded by wave swept rock festooned with rotten, dying coral.  Suffice it to say, this fish, too, lives in the surge zone.  On this moderately rough day we were asked to sweep with the surge, back and forth over the crevice, while fending off the projecting rocks and coral with our gloved hand and look into the depths for a glimpse of the gargantuan blenny.   We didn't see the gargantuan blenny, a large black blenny with shiny blue spots, but there was a stocky hawkfish perched on the edge of the crevasse who took some pleasure in watching me swoop back and forth, all the while, like a spectator at the Indy 500, hoping for a spectacular crash.

   Later in our swim I saw a snowflake moray eel in about twenty feet.  With the weights I was able to dive deeper and stay down with ease.  Swimming back to the surface was not difficult, but if one chose not to swim up, he would not be drawn up like a bubble.

 So there you have it...a choice.


  Marla keeps a wonderful garden and she gave us a bunch of calamondin.  Although they are the size of tangerines, they look more like small oranges.  They are quite juicy.  The juice tastes slightly of orange, but the over riding characteristic is its  high acidity.  I found it palatable when the juice of half of one small fruit was diluted in six ounces of water and sweetened with half a packet of splenda.  This advice will probably not help you unless you are friends with Marla.  I've never seen this fruit anywhere else and I suppose you can guess why.  On the other hand, didn't Sandra take a delightful picture of the calalmondin with the purple flowers that grow in our yard? 

    We don't know the name of those flowers, which I have been able to propagate with cuttings.  As a result, we have a bunch of them.  If you would like to drop by and take a cutting you are more than welcome. We might even give you a calalmondin cooler.   Better yet, if you know the name of those lovely Husky colored flowers, don't keep it a

secret.  If you can give us the name we might send you a calamondin cooler.

    First prize, a calamondin cooler.  Second prize, two calamondin coolers,

   While I was enjoying my calamondin cooler, I finished putting the mod podge on my rendition of the Gulf Fritillary butterfly.  It took a lot of work, but I like the result.  Now we just have to catch up with Denise and secure a show at the library.

Jeff

The Gulf Fritillary ala Jeff

Kona Coffee and the Gulf Frippilary Butterfly

    Having failed to get my paper mache fish into the Portland Art Museum or the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI), I have decided to lower the bar to a more attainable height: roughly six feet, which is the width of the display case in the Kailua Kona branch of the Hawaii State Library.  Having exhausted my Kona audience with two previous shows involving realistic paper mache reef

The Kamehameha Butterfly courtesy of UH.  A Hawaiian endemic

fish, I have decided on a new endeavor. Or Endeavour, if you favour the spelling of Cook's first ship in which he circumnavigated...not the benighted vessel that he piloted to his demise in Kealakekua Bay.  That was the Resolution.  As in, "I resolve not to argue with natives bearing edged weapons."

    But I digress.

     The new plan involves creating realistic replicas of the butterflies of Hawaii.  I am waiting for the head librarian, Denise, to return from the mainland to confirm my booking. You, my faithful audience, will be among the first to know of the confirmed engagement.

     My butterflies were initially inspired by Bob and Kim Hillis and their quest to see the Kamehameha butterfly,  Vanessa tameamea.   This brown and orange beauty is endemic to Hawaii and infrequently seen.  To the best of my knowledge, neither the Hillis's nor your faithful correspondent have seen the Kamehameha, but it is now rendered, magnificently, in paper mache and

The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. 

acrylic paint.

    Following the Kamehameha, I churned out a black witch moth,  Ascalapha odorata,  that humongous dark moth that is sometimes mistaken for a bat.  The black witch is found in North and South America and, although wikipedia states that it is not native, it has been here long enough to find its way into Hawaiian lore.  In Mexico it is known as mariposa muerte,  the butterfly of  death. Hawaiians, ever optimistic, view it as the spirit of a beloved departed coming to say goodbye.

   At about the same time, I crafted an Asian Swallowtail, which is much the same as the tiger swallowtail of the mainland only without the yellow.  This species is native to Hawaii and found all over the Pacific.  Papilio xuthus is found from eastern Siberia, across Southeast Asia and the Pacific, all the way to these very Sandwich Islands.  Although it is not introduced, suffice it to say it is hardly an endemic.

Orange Sulfur butterflies on the Beach at City of Refuge.  One of our favorites.

    Last year I made an orange sulfur butterfly, commonly seen at the beach, and an eastern tiger swallowtail.  These last two were presented as a gift to our friend Stacey Bierlein, who loves butterflies and even has one tattooed on her....shoulder.  Perhaps she will be kind enough to loan them back for the exhibit.  Assuming that there is an exhibit.

    Last week we really got into the lepidopteran  spirit and cranked out a monarch, which if I say so myself is really beautiful, if a bit larger than life, and a koa butterfly.  The monarch,  Danaus plexippus, is the species that is most frequently seen in the garden at Casa Ono.  When one thinks of  monarchs, they might recall the population from eastern North America  that migrates to the pine woods south of Mexico City.  This latter habitat is under pressure from human encroachment and hence that population of monarch is in danger.  The population from western North America has a wintering ground in Pacific Grove, just south of Monterey, Ca. Were it

Recently created Monarch and Koa Butterflies. 

not for our current commander in thief, this might be a safer place than the highlands of Mexico.  The population in Hawaii, and on other Pacific islands, is non-migratory, so we get to enjoy this colorful species all year. 

  I also made a koa butterfly, a small blue species. The koa is an endemic that lives in the  rain forest of the Hamakua coast.

    As you might guess, I have run out of butterflies that I have actually seen in Hawaii and have resorted to working with colorful species that the internet identifies as Hawaii residents. The Gulf fritillary butterfly is roughly the size of a monarch and a beautiful creature if one is to judge by the pictures seen on the internet.  It is native to Florida and the Caribbean.  Like so many of our animals, it is introduced.  The internet stated that it was to be found at the Amy Greenwell Gardens in Kealakekua, a place near and dear to our coffee loving hearts. 

An orchid growing in the trees at Greenwell's

     So this Sunday we made it up to Greenwell's for some coffee tasting and butterfly hunting.   We met three ladies of a certain age who were acting as docents.  None had seen the Gulf fritillary butterfly.  But the one that was most interested, a Japanese lady named Chai, took us to the orange trees where Sandra was the first to find a chameleon.  It was exactly the color of the branch.  A bit later, on the other tree, a couple tourists found a handsome green chameleon. These were both males with three horns.

    After chameleon watching Chai broke the bad news to us.  The County of Hawaii has acquired the Greenwell Garden, which I believe was previously run by the coffee growing family, and closed it to the public.  So much for butterfly hunting where the flowers are better.  Before we went home, Sandra and I drove by garden, which is just down the road from the coffee tasting. The sign is gone and there is no indication that one might be welcome to pursue his nature watching.

If you have a hot tip for a Gulf Fritillary Butterfly send it along!

    Our new friend did have something else to add.  I have wondered for some time why these fancy (or at least expensive) Kona coffees just taste like plain old coffee to me.  Chai said that like wine, there are many different smells and flavors that can be detected in the coffee, up to 1200 if she is to be believed.  She agreed with me that the flavors are quite subtle in the beverage.  However, she noted that the aromas are far more obvious in freshly ground beans.  She rattled off a handful:  tropical fruit, chocolate, vanilla and tobacco.  If its like wine tasting, the list probably runs to things like coyote urine and yesterday's socks.  Next time you grind your beans you should enjoy the aroma of the grind before subjecting it to hot water.   

   But let's not leave it at that.  Imagine that you are sitting at a picnic table up at Greenwell's.  The sun is out, the sky is blue and there is a gulf fritillary butterfly perched on a cup of chameleon roast.  That's what I call living the Hawaiian dream.  See you there.

jeff

Stop in a Greenwell's for some coffee and a chameleon.  this female was photographed last year.