Clarice and I got back last week from an enjoyable trip to Hawaii.
Third birding trip to the big island and finally--finally--got a good look
at 'akiapola'au and an 'akepa. These were both a Hakalau wildlife
refuge, which is well worth the trip. Wonderful old growth 'ohia and
koa forest.

One thing I thought some of you might find interesting was a special
trip we arranged to look at some parrots. I heard that there was a
crater in Hualalai, the big volcano that sits upwind from Kona, that
contained a flock of "parrots" and I wanted to see them. I was told
that they would fly around in a big circle while coming up from the
"300 foot deep pit". I had visions of seeing an old friend, Aratinga
holochlora, possibly breeding on Hawaii, because pit caves form a
preferred habitat of these little conures in Mexico. There, they often
nest on ledges in vertical limestone pits. If you descend (caving)
into one of those big pits (such as near Gomez Farias or other
popular birding areas in northern Mexico) you can raise up huge
clouds of Aratinga that circle you for a long time while squawking up
out of the pit.

We arranged a trip with Hawaii nature and trail, (a very good outfit,
which also got us in to Hakalau) to drive and hike up on the private
land on the volcano. The pit turned out to be a large collapse crater,
perhaps a lava tube collapse but it looked more like a straight
vertical pit, that was really about 150 feet or so deep. It was quite
large and impressive. The birds turned out to be Aratinga finschi,
and there was a healthy looking flock of at least 12 birds, plus one
really feather picked extra that didn't look too healthy. All the others
were paired (finschi often seem to stay paired in flocks), so we
wondered if the ratty looking one was a juvenile-- indicating
breeding.

I have never personally seen parrots on the big island before, so I
was curious to see how these birds were doing. The vegetation
around the crater was mostly all native, stunted (volcanic activity
within the last 200 years or so) forest. Wondered what they were
eating there, with the most likely answer probably being introduced
passion flower fruit, the vines for which did cover quite a few trees in
the area. The fellow who took us up there said that you often saw
pairs of these flying in the upper residential areas above Kona. I
guess since we always stay near the beach we have been too low to
be in areas attractive to them. This is kind of interesting to me,
however, since Kona is full of coconut palms and finschi often roosts
in palm trees in Central America, and indeed tends to be a lowland
bird there.

The floor of the pit was not a "lava lake", rather it was covered with
big native trees, and all the birds we saw were in the trees rather
than on the ledges around the side of the pit. They did fly out in a
big, slow, impressive circle just like the "Cave Conures" I remember
from Mexico.

So, here we have some more of the adaptation of alien life to a
niche in Hawaii. A Central American conure that is usually seen at
low elevations in palms, fields and parks, living high in a generally
native forest in native trees in a crater on Hawaii, and otherwise
doing just what parrots like to do. Most certainly surviving on
introduced fruit, and I suspect breeding right along. Who knows,
eventually the place will look just like Mexico.

I know a few Iiwis that would disaprove, and maybe will get sick to
death over this spectacle.

Jerry
Jerry Broadus, PLS
Geometrix Surveying, Inc.
P.O. Box 249
Puyallup, WA. 98371