On Friday I finally did an expedition to 'Ola'a Trench, just South of Pu'u Maka'ala NAR, with a local entomologist. The weather was perfect, with non-threatening puffs of cloud in the morning, a brief late afternoon shower, and a mostly cloudy sunset. The air was very still in the morning, so it was a very sweaty trek. The breeze finally picked up with the afternoon showers, which helped us to locate scattered loulu palms rustling in the wind.
We went via Pu'u Maka'ala Army Road, following transect 11 from the southeast corner of the Army Road quadrangle. The route was very weedy, being heavily infested with stinging palm grass and giant canes of himalayan raspberry. Pig activity was also extremely heavy, so the understory was stripped of native plants had very little resemblance to a healthy native forest. The forest was a very open canopy of widely scattered large trees, with mixed species of native trees and tree ferns forming a low "canopy" about 10-15 feet tall. Only small pockets of 'uluhe. Along the way there were occasional plants of interest. The area has a large population of epiphytic clermontia parviflora. We found one pair of unusual baby clermontia that looked like it might be a clermontia lindseyana, but it wasn't possible to determine. There were several epiphytic colonies of koli'i. We inspected scattered cyrtandra and loulu palms.
We arrived at the saddle of the trench about noon (3.5 hours from the Army Road quadrangle), where they've erected a bit of fencing to keep pigs from going down the easy way. The view from the edge was interesting - not so much of the trench itself, but down towards the southeast where we could see the next cone downslope (prominent on the satellite images), and Puna beyond that. Unfortunately there was plenty of pig activity inside the trench, so they're finding other ways in - they're better climbers than people are. The trench was full of weeds anyhow - lots of palm grass, himalayan raspberry, strawberry guava. The carex bog in the middle is infested with palm grass and vasey grass. We wanted to find the cyrtandra tintinnabula, but didn't spend much time in the trench. We saw just two small cyrtandra, which could not be identified. We went up to walk along the rim where we expected to encounter some, but didn't see any. Otherwise the flora in the small area of the trench we saw was unremarkable.
The Army Road quadrangle is a mix of excellent quality native high canopy and open canopy forest, with very high biodiversity. Japanese white-eye and 'apapane are the most numerous birds, with plentiful 'oma'o and 'elepaio, and occasional northern cardinal and i'iwi that seem to inhabit a few specific spots. While crossing the weedy open-canopy forest between Army Road and the trench we encountered very few native birds. Japanese white-eye were widespread in low numbers, and there were low numbers of northern cardinal and kalij pheasant. Occasionally there would be small numbers of 'apapane, but I have forgotten if we heard 'oma'o or 'elepaio. It was very quiet.
Fortunately the palm grass was not in seed, so we didn't get covered in seeds. My hands and arms were full of stinging palm grass nettles by the end of the day, but they go away after a couple of days. I hacked away at the giant himalayan raspberry canes as we went, and it was frustrating to pass so many of them up without being able to stop and hack them all. We found a single ginger infesting a tree fern, and removed it as well as we could.
We went via Pu'u Maka'ala Army Road, following transect 11 from the southeast corner of the Army Road quadrangle. The route was very weedy, being heavily infested with stinging palm grass and giant canes of himalayan raspberry. Pig activity was also extremely heavy, so the understory was stripped of native plants had very little resemblance to a healthy native forest. The forest was a very open canopy of widely scattered large trees, with mixed species of native trees and tree ferns forming a low "canopy" about 10-15 feet tall. Only small pockets of 'uluhe. Along the way there were occasional plants of interest. The area has a large population of epiphytic clermontia parviflora. We found one pair of unusual baby clermontia that looked like it might be a clermontia lindseyana, but it wasn't possible to determine. There were several epiphytic colonies of koli'i. We inspected scattered cyrtandra and loulu palms.
We arrived at the saddle of the trench about noon (3.5 hours from the Army Road quadrangle), where they've erected a bit of fencing to keep pigs from going down the easy way. The view from the edge was interesting - not so much of the trench itself, but down towards the southeast where we could see the next cone downslope (prominent on the satellite images), and Puna beyond that. Unfortunately there was plenty of pig activity inside the trench, so they're finding other ways in - they're better climbers than people are. The trench was full of weeds anyhow - lots of palm grass, himalayan raspberry, strawberry guava. The carex bog in the middle is infested with palm grass and vasey grass. We wanted to find the cyrtandra tintinnabula, but didn't spend much time in the trench. We saw just two small cyrtandra, which could not be identified. We went up to walk along the rim where we expected to encounter some, but didn't see any. Otherwise the flora in the small area of the trench we saw was unremarkable.
The Army Road quadrangle is a mix of excellent quality native high canopy and open canopy forest, with very high biodiversity. Japanese white-eye and 'apapane are the most numerous birds, with plentiful 'oma'o and 'elepaio, and occasional northern cardinal and i'iwi that seem to inhabit a few specific spots. While crossing the weedy open-canopy forest between Army Road and the trench we encountered very few native birds. Japanese white-eye were widespread in low numbers, and there were low numbers of northern cardinal and kalij pheasant. Occasionally there would be small numbers of 'apapane, but I have forgotten if we heard 'oma'o or 'elepaio. It was very quiet.
Fortunately the palm grass was not in seed, so we didn't get covered in seeds. My hands and arms were full of stinging palm grass nettles by the end of the day, but they go away after a couple of days. I hacked away at the giant himalayan raspberry canes as we went, and it was frustrating to pass so many of them up without being able to stop and hack them all. We found a single ginger infesting a tree fern, and removed it as well as we could.
