We were given a tour of the public trail in the Nature Conservancy's and Haleakala Ranch's Waikamoi preserve on the North slope of East Maui. The weather was absolutely perfect.
The "Hosmer's Grove" area was a bit of a shock. The trail was extremely short. There has been little/no attempt to replace the alien trees with native species. There were plenty of the common native birds, though, and it was odd to see native birds in alien trees that they usually ignore on Hawai'i. Not what we came for.
After meeting our guide and walking WAY down through the alien tree plantation we finally arrived at the edge of the native forest and the Waikamoi boardwalk. The forest is mesic, not rainforest, and contained only the most common native plant species. I had been hoping for rare and interesting Maui plants, but it was much like the upper Saddle forests. We stayed near the end of the boardwalk, accumulating birds. When we got there we saw plenty of Maui 'alauahio (creeper), which may be the most attractive of the remaining honeycreepers. Very bright and much like an American warbler. In less than an hour we started to see 'akohekohe. Maybe 8 total today. Maui parrotbill (pocket 'akiapola'au) soon followed, with 4 encounters, but possibly all the same bird. All 3 made very distinctive sounds that allowed us to search for them effectively. We stayed for a few hours trying to get better photos, with partial success. Too bad we only had one day and could not leave the boardwalk area.
Photos are in the next entry....
The "Hosmer's Grove" area was a bit of a shock. The trail was extremely short. There has been little/no attempt to replace the alien trees with native species. There were plenty of the common native birds, though, and it was odd to see native birds in alien trees that they usually ignore on Hawai'i. Not what we came for.
After meeting our guide and walking WAY down through the alien tree plantation we finally arrived at the edge of the native forest and the Waikamoi boardwalk. The forest is mesic, not rainforest, and contained only the most common native plant species. I had been hoping for rare and interesting Maui plants, but it was much like the upper Saddle forests. We stayed near the end of the boardwalk, accumulating birds. When we got there we saw plenty of Maui 'alauahio (creeper), which may be the most attractive of the remaining honeycreepers. Very bright and much like an American warbler. In less than an hour we started to see 'akohekohe. Maybe 8 total today. Maui parrotbill (pocket 'akiapola'au) soon followed, with 4 encounters, but possibly all the same bird. All 3 made very distinctive sounds that allowed us to search for them effectively. We stayed for a few hours trying to get better photos, with partial success. Too bad we only had one day and could not leave the boardwalk area.
Photos are in the next entry....
