A trip to Hilo with Snow and an Unusual Moth with Kona Snorkeling and Waikoloa Stilts

     This week we have been host to Sandra's daughter, Leslie. Luckily the surf came down, affording us

The Freckled Hawkfish strikes a pose on the PAR.

the opportunity to do some snorkeling.  Sadly, the fish are still not as plentiful and diverse as they once were.  Leslie and I saw one nice fat Freckled Hawkfish  on Paul Allen's Reef.  He was sitting in a rocky depression and was cooperative when I dove to take his picture.  Once quite common, the Blackside Hawkfish (as Mr. Freckle has been recast by the ichthyological illuminatti) is now rather uncommon. C'est dommage.

   Also this week I taught Leslie how to cut down a banana tree and hang the bunch to ripen.  With any luck, Sandra and I will have ripe bananas before we return to the icy northland.  that's only five weeks away and we sincerely hope that by April 11th the guy upstairs who is running the climate change thing has gotten the snow and ice thing out of his system.

An Elegant Black Neck Stilt at the Waikoloa Dump

    The motivation for cutting down the banana was largely to generate enough yard debris to justify a trip to the Waikoloa Transfer Station.  Two days after the harvest, we loaded up the segments of stump and the leaves and made our way north.  As we hoped, the Black Neck Stilts were still in the fenced drainage pond. All three of us got some fine looks at these handsome birds. 

     They were not nearly as flighty as on our first excursion, flying overhead and screeching at us only a couple times.  They spent some time feeding on the far side of the pond.  Eventually, one of the birds came to the near side and promenaded along the edge.  

   This Christmas Santa left a Panasonic G85 camera in my stocking.  Thoughtfully, the jolly old soul included a 45-150 zoom lens in hopes that I would reward the elves with some butterfly pictures come summer in the PNW.   This banana-driven expedition to see the stilts was the first chance to test the camera out against the wildlife.  Here you see a couple of the better shots.  One can only assume that Mrs. Claus broke out a big box of candy canes in celebration.

    Given the frenetic flying and screeching on our first encounter with the stilts, we had hoped that there might be babies for us to gurgle and coo at.  If there were, we didn't see any.  This pond doesn't have an island or any other site that might protect a nest and there is no reason to believe that a mongoose could not sneak in and take the eggs, but we will continue to watch for babies.  And just think...How cute is a baby stilt!

 

    All of which brings us to yesterday.  Sandra is enjoying the recovery period of her second cataract operation.  And who knew?  It is apparently common that a year or so after a cataract is removed, crystals form in the eye, eventually clouding the vision from said peeper to essentially the same extent as the cataract.  Although she had already suffered this ignominy once, the Kaiser Permanente bureaucracy required her to see an optometrist who then passed her on to an ophthalmologist.  At that juncture, she was given a choice:  She could fly to Honolulu and have it done there or drive to Hilo, where Kaiser has installed a laser and, as it turns out, an ophthalmologist flies over from Honolulu once a week to zap post cataract crystals.

   And so we left the balmy shores of Kailua Kona at 8:30 in the morning and made our way north to the Daniel Inouye Expressway and on to Hilo.  On the way we were stopped for road construction.  Off to our left was Maui, rising above the clouds.  And ahead was Mauna Kea with an amazing amount of snow.  While we were stopped, Leslie took pictures out the window.  Why she did not take a picture of the snow capped mauna will remain a mystery for the ages.

   As we headed up the DIE, we were treated to a striking view of Mauna Loa covered in snow.  

The moth of the Maille Pilau Hornworm,

  It was only a couple months back when Mana Loa was erupting and we feared that lava was going to creep across the highway, precluding this route for the foreseeable future.  Sandra and I made an excursion to see this magnificent event, and so we knew where to look for the lava ridge, now only a mile or so from the highway.  When we got there, we thought we saw snow down in the saddle.  This was the north slope of Mauna Loa, so it seemed possible.  More careful observation revealed that it was steam rising from the area where the lave had bee flowing, which is to say that the lava field is still hot, generating the steam.

   The main thrust of this journey was getting Sandra to the Kaiser ophthalmologist in Hilo.  While she was waiting her turn, Leslie and I went to a couple nearby waterfalls.  The gushing river and the falling rain all combined to remind us that falling water is what Hilo is known for.  

   After the waterfalls we made lunch and dined sumptuously on a bench in front of the Hilo Kaiser Clinic.  As we settled down to eat, what we thought was the most amazing bee came in to nectar on the impatiens that were growing in the adjacent planter.  He was close and we got some excellent looks.  But he was too fast for Lesile to capture him with her cell phone.  Back in Estacada, where she works as a librarian, Leslie has a high school student who specializes in drawing bees.  I, on the other hand, have Daniel Rubinoff, PhD.  He of the Kamehameha Butterfly project at UH Manoa.  Here are the field notes I sent to Daniel:

Or the Burnt Spot Hummingbird Hawkmoth

This bug was not small, perhaps 1.8 cm in length.  It had a strange proboscis that extended dramatically from the face. Sandra's daughter, who was eating with me, thought she saw white markings around the face.  Additionally, it had dramatic orange and black fringes extending from the base of the wings.  And it had a significant, pointed abdomen which came to a point suggesting a stinger.  Do you know what this curious animal might be?  I might call it a hummingbird bee.

    This was a chip shot for Dr R.; he identified the insect as the Maille Pilau Hornworm, or Burnt Spot Hummingbird Hawkmoth.  This  moth is native to the SW Pacific and also well known as an introduced species in Hawaii.  Here I'm including two pictures from the internet  that demonstrates what Leslie and I saw

    Sandra's eye is fixed and we are back safely, high and dry in Kona.   If only we had a few hawkmoths to keep us company.

jeff

   In a subsequent communication, Dr Rubinoff tells us that this moth is not particularly rare and is found on all the main islands, but only in wetter areas.  Like HIlo.  Also, it is not seen with great frequency as it is primarily nocturnal.  However, it appears during daylight hours on dark, cloudy days.  And so, vis vis the Burnt Spot Hummingbird Hawkmoth, Leslie and I were fortunate to be eating our lunch on a dark, rainy day!   j