Recently, a cow skull appeared on a pole by Upolu Airport. A few days later, someone painted the skull gold, which I think is rather striking.
Tag Archives: Upolu
Storm in the channel
Heavy rain in the Alenuihaha Channel, between Maui and the Big Island, rumbles towards shore. Those cows are going to get a dousing.
Clown with a parachute
Everyone’s scared of clowns, right? This one appeared attached to the sometime-in-the-distant-future shade tree by Upolu Airport. Presumably it was hung there in connection with the skydivers operating there, but imagine it on your porch, swinging in the breeze, just watching and waiting for your return one dark and rainy night. Dum, dum, dum, dum.
Moon landing
When I saw these skydivers I thought of Kurt Vonnegut’s satirical essay “Excelsior! We’re Going to the Moon! Excelsior!” The connection was really nothing more than the title.
In this case, I imagined the captions as “Coming in for landing,” “Whoa, just missed,” and “Let’s go round again.” I bet this is along the lines of how the moon landings were faked!
The reality is these were part of Upolu Airport’s newest/only economic enterprise, B.I.G Skydiving. On this outing, a couple of solo skydivers had already landed. These two were on a tandem skydive, where a paying customer has the much-needed security of being attached to an experienced skydiver.
For more information about B. I. G. Skydiving go to skydivebig.com.
Unwise mourning gecko
Returning to my truck after a walk, I happened to notice this little gecko scuttling into the shadows. I got down on hands and knees to see where it had gone and it moved farther under the truck. I went around the truck, back on hands and knees, and saw it shoot off in the opposite direction. Then I went to the front of the truck, hands and knees again, and wondered where it had gone.
It took me a while to discover it’s hiding place. As the top photo shows, the gecko hadn’t picked a great spot. I waggled my hand at it, but it didn’t budge. So I got up, found a stick, and, back on hands and knees again, reached in and tapped the ground behind it until it shot out and around the other side of the tire. I got up, walked around to usher it away and it promptly scurried back to the inside of the tire.
We repeated this little dance two or three times. I wasn’t getting anywhere and the young mourning gecko clearly believed it had found a really safe hideout. My knees were sore and I figured this kind of activity was probably what Darwin was thinking of. So I got in the truck, fired it up, waited a minute or two, and slowly reversed. Then I pulled forward, stopped and got out.
The little guy had survived so I thought I’d take a photo. Right about then a young woman approached with two boisterous dogs and asked if I could suggest a good place to exercise them. The dogs were getting plenty of exercise right there, barking continuously, and jumping up and down. I cast concerned looks at where they were landing as I gave her a few tips.
When she headed out of the parking lot with her charges, I bent down and saw that the little gecko had survived the canine cacophony and was still anchored in the same spot. I took the second photo and then the gecko headed off toward the low concrete tire stop and eventually disappeared underneath.
V-22 Ospreys
I’m not a bird watcher per se, but I’ve increasingly enjoyed the wide variety of bird life that I see when I’m out and about. Recently, I’ve been seeing a couple of pairs of nene, the Hawaiian goose. There’s a family of zebra doves that huddle up together on the mock orange outside the kitchen window. On a daily basis I encounter pairs of mynah birds, saffron finches, northern cardinals and several more.
What does that have to do with these photos? Well, for some reason, my first thought on seeing these two V-22 Ospreys thundering toward Upolu Airport was, ‘I wonder if they’re a breeding pair?’ All things considered, I suspect they are.
Nene calling
When it rains, large puddles form off to the side of the runway at Upolu Airport. These puddles are popular with a variety of birds, including these two nene, which were in fine voice.
The nene, or Hawaiian goose, is the official state bird and endemic to the islands. It’s also an endangered species and people are encouraged to report sightings to help track the birds. Here on the Big Island, nene sightings are reported to Hawaii’s Division of Forestry and Wildlife. The person I contacted there, Raymond B. McGuire, gave me this information about the birds:
“All of the nene that have the gray bands (like these) are part of a Governor’s Proclamation to move nene from Kaua’i (where they were nesting in a golf course near the airport) to the Big Island and Maui. In total, the Big Island received 598 nene in a 5-year period (2011-2016), this more than doubled the resident population prior to the project. The bands not only tell us where the nene came from, but also the sex. There should be two bands on the nene. One is metal with a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service number (really tiny and hard to see) and the other is made of colored plastic and much easier to read the ID numbers (though the gray bands are not always easy to see on a gray legged bird). These gray-banded birds were banded by sex: males will have their plastic bands on the right and females will have the plastic bands on the left. These two particular nene, T86 and T87 were brought to the Big Island in 2014 and according to my records T86 is a male, and T87 is a female. They were brought as a breeding pair with 4 offspring. The translocated birds have been exploring the island more than the local birds have been. Although most of the introduced nene have been mixing with local nene and frequenting already established nene areas, we also now have nene frequenting areas that historically have not seen them or used to see them very infrequently, such as in Pahala, Punalu’u, Hawi (including Upolu), Waimea, and Kukuihaele!”
For more information about Nene and other native Hawaiian birds, go to state.hi.us/dlnr/consrvhi/forestbirds/.
V-22 Osprey
Returning from a walk around Upolu Airport, I was startled by a loud thumping noise close by. Through the trees I saw this peculiar-looking aircraft touching down. The plane is a V-22 Osprey, a tiltrotor aircraft used by the military, in this case, the U.S. Marine Corps.
The plane made several loops, out over ʻAlenuihāhā Channel and back around to the airport to land, then do it all over again. It was actually quite fascinating to see the engines rotate from horizontal to vertical while in flight.
Eventually, the plane headed out over the channel and kept going, probably back to its base on Oahu.
Graham's Island 