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8/15/09 - North of Saddle Road (19 Mile Area) (1 Viewer)

Today I continued exploring the forests North of the 19 mile mark of Saddle Road. Another late start, but I made a lot of progress today. The weather was overcast and sprinkles around morning to noon, followed by a partly cloudy and dry afternoon. Yellow fronted canaries greeted me at the parking area again. They really love that spot.

I motored up the trail this time intent to get to the end of Thursday's exploration. (only 500 meters in) I noticed and waypointed a few new 'anini trees along the way. Red-billed leiothrix were prominent today. On Thursday I had stopped at the edge of the rich high canopy forest before the trail dropped down onto a boggy surface. As I descended into the bog I was quite surprised by what I had failed to notice on Thursday - a vast carpet of sphagnum moss. It was everywhere! Every gully and hummock and flat was covered with sphagnum. A short forest of skinny common native trees was growing out of the sphagnum, along with scattered grassy areas where alien juncus did battle with native carex alligata. I have never seen so much sphagnum before - even at the summit of Kohala. Fortunately the surface was firm and fairly dry, unlike Kohala's treacherous wet bogs. The sphagnum forest didn't lack for birds, and was just slightly quieter than the richer canopy forest.

The trail crossed the sphagnum, and eventually I climbed up onto another dry forested surface. Here I left the original trail to explore under the trees, but soon found myself on a parallel trail. I started to discover a few new weeds in this area. Nasturtium, ivy, meadow ricegrass, Florida blackberry...perhaps other pasture grasses. Some of this forest looked promising for rare plants, and I'd like to return tomorrow now that I know the layout of the area better.

The promising area didn't last long. I followed the new trail (flagged by the same person as the others) straight North. The forest transformed into a drier forest of skinny short 'ohi'a trees growing on flat and evidently poor soil, with occasional large masses of all 3 species of 'uluhe fern. The tree diversity was very low in this area, and the trail was straight and fast. Delicate grasses became more common, and I started to remember how this part of the forest has been infested by feral cattle from the ranches above. However, I could not see any disturbance that suggested recent cattle activity. (Feral bulls, man-eating holes and falling trees are the only things to fear in Hawai'i's forests.) Eventually I ran out of time to continue and turned back. At this point I was 2.2 km North of Saddle Road, and at a steady pace that's also about 2.2 hours to return to the road.

In this area I also started to find (native) amauropelta ferns which surprised me as I had previously only seen these in Kona. These not terribly attractive ferns go by the oddly fancy name "palapalai a kamapua'a". However, they look nothing like the better known beautiful and delicate palapalai ferns!

Looking on the satellite images this evening I can see that I stopped just before entering another bit of higher canopy forest that should be good for rare plants if it's not too torn up by ferals. Above that is what is left of the tall forest of large trees on the lower edge of the ranch pastures, presumably including a lot of koa and perhaps also a lot of feral cattle. It will be interesting to see if I find any creepers, 'akepa or 'akiapola'au as I approach the lower edge of the ranch pasture. I expect that they stay right up against the upper edge of the forest if they ever move North-South between the population concentrations of the Hakalau area on windward Mauna Kea and the Saddle and windward Mauna Loa populations.

Although I didn't encounter any cattle I did have an odd encounter with a dog. Just as I left the first trail and found the second trail there was a lot of gunfire (the non-hunting type) that sounded like it might be within the canopy forest. A few minutes after that stopped I heard a dog bark nearby. The dog seemed to follow me from a distance as I explored the trail heading North, but I didn't see or hear any sign of people nearby. After turning around I caught up to the dog on the trail, and he ran off in a huff before I could get a good look. I heard him bark a couple more times ahead of me in the bog area and then nothing more. It's possible somebody was camped out nearby for the weekend.

After turning around I decided to try to stay with the new trail on the way back even though time was running short. This proved to be a very good idea. The new trail avoided the sphagnum bog on the way back and generally crossed very interesting forest. The second trail turned out to be a branch that separated from the first trail early on, just as I suspected/hoped. Following the new (straighter) trail back I found several more 'anini trees, plus the first 'aiea and 'ohe mauka trees in this forest. Today's 'aiea is just the 3rd I've seen on the Saddle. Unfortunately the 'aiea and several 'anini got hacked up a bit by the hunters who made the trail. :( The new trail will probably become my main trail since it is straighter and much more well-worn than the previous one.

OK, I have to complain about the EXCESSIVE AMOUNTS OF TRASH scattered around the forest by the people using this trail - probably most of it from the same person. It was beyond the usual amount of litter on any other trail I've been on before. There were countless bottles, cans, cups, wrappers, bags, wads of tape, cigarette packs (USA brand), bits of shoe, and even a buck knife and a kitchen bowl! Of course there was also the usual nasty and needless hacking bark off of numerous trees and cutting down of tree saplings. :C :C :C

There was little rain or wind so I did a number of bird counts. Averages for the 8 minute counts were: (most counts fairly consistent)
3.1 'apapane
2.9 'oma'o
1.5 'amakihi
1.1 'elepaio
1.0 i'iwi
1.5 red-billed leiothrix
0.9 Japanese white-eye
 
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