Tag Archives: Mauna Kea

Waimea and pu’us

The town of Waimea sits in the saddle between Mauna Kea and Kohala Mountain. The town is also known as Kamuela because several towns on other islands have the name ‘Waimea’ too. The postal service needed something more exclusive so Kamuela, Hawaiian for Samuel, was chosen to honor a local citizen.

This view shows the town nestled among trees and backed by pu’us (hills) on the flank of Kohala Mountain. It could be considered a rather bucolic view, which is something of a private joke in this household. A couple of years ago, a run down and shuttered gas station, at the main intersection in town, was becoming something of an eyesore. A letter to the local paper deplored this situation, saying it was a blight on ‘bucolic Waimea.’

Truth is, Waimea looks a good deal more bucolic from a distance. Close up, it’s a busy small town, with a good deal of traffic and a couple of prominent shopping centers. It’s really a quite nice small town, but I’m not sure ‘bucolic’ is how I’d describe it.

Hualalai and clouds

Hualalai and clouds

I’ve spent a fair amount of time in my life looking up at clouds, often as they poured water in my direction, so it’s nice to look down on them once in a while. Airplanes are probably the most common place to enjoy this view, but here on the Big Island, the upper reaches of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa also offer this perspective.

In this case, the clouds were low enough that, when I was visiting the Palila Forest Discovery Trail at around 7,000 feet, the clouds blanketed the landscape below. Here, Hualalai pokes through the cloud layer in the late afternoon.

For more information about Palila Forest Discovery Trail, go to dlnr.hawaii.gov/restoremaunakea/palila-forest-discovery-trail/.

Palila feeding

palila

I’ve made a couple of recent visits to the Palila Forest Discovery Trail, on the slopes of Mauna Kea, in search of palilas, an endangered Hawaiian honeycreeper. On one of those visits I was lucky enough to see this bird.

I wrote here about the first time I saw palilas, in late 2017. Those birds were feeding on immature mamane seed pods, one of their main foods. But the bird in this photo has what I think is a naio flower in its grip. The fruits and flowers of naio, otherwise known as false sandalwood, are the other main foods of the palila.

For more information about palila and the Palila Forest Discovery Trail, go to dlnr.hawaii.gov/restoremaunakea/palila-forest-discovery-trail/.

Ghostly tree

ghostly tree

The last time I visited the Palila Forest Discovery Trail, on the southwest slopes of Mauna Kea, I didn’t see too many birds, but did enjoy looking down on the cloud layer covering the lowlands between Mauna Kea and Hualalai.

This tree sat on the slope of Mauna Kea at the point where the top of the clouds swirled around it, giving it a very ghostly appearance.