Saturday brought violent thunderstorms to Hilo, all night and through most of the day. Power was out in Hilo for many hours, and there were a couple earthquakes just to keep things interesting. Fortunately I had morning plans other than my usual wilderness exploration, which would have been impossible today and may also be impossible tomorrow. The Kilauea version of the Christmas Bird Count was this morning at Keauhou Ranch, above Volcano Village. We were just northwest of Kulani Cone at about 5600 feet elevation, in 25-35 year old koa plantations at the edge of the native forest reserve ("Kilauea Forest"), coordinates 19.53307, -155.32034. The Kilauea area Christmas Bird Counts used to be done at lower elevations near Kilauea Caldera and Kipuka Puaulu (perhaps some still are), but more recently has been at higher elevations in Kulani Correctional Facility and Keauhou Ranch due to the recession in range of the endangered native honeycreepers. I'm not quite sure of the history of it, other than where I've read accounts of the disappearance of the native forest birds ('o'u, creeper, etc) at Kilauea Caldera recorded during the Christmas Bird Count in the 1940's and 1950's.

We split into a couple of large groups, and my group did a loop through the koa plantations and along a bit of the forest reserve fenceline. We had the expected abundance of 'apapane fluttering in every direction overhead, with scattered 'amakihi and 'elepaio, and a few 'oma'o and i'iwi. I heard 1 Hawai'i creeper on the loop and 9 'akiapola'au, 4 of which were juveniles. No obvious 'akepa this time. Non-native birds were scarce, with scattered Japanese white-eye, a handful of red-billed leiothrix and a couple of northern cardinal. Since the large group was mostly non-counters the methodology was very erratic. We travelled the loop slowly, stopping occasionally for interesting birds, doing a couple of short point counts, and then had some occasional breaks.

We encountered 2 calling 'akiapola'au quickly on the first leg of our loop, and heard a creeper nearby. We passed another 'akiapola'au calling a bit further out on the first leg of the loop. On the second leg of the loop we stumbled across a pair of juveniles giving their beacon calls and foraging a bit unexpertly in the small koas next to the trail. We didn't hear any adults at that time. On the final leg of the loop along the forest reserve fenceline (we stopped bird counting by then) we encountered an adult pair with the female calling and the male singing. Across the fenceline it sounded like there were another pair of juveniles, and the adults crossed over to join them. None of the 'akiapola'au we saw had any visible bands.

Here is an interesting account of an endangered honeycreeper convention observed at the same location 35 years ago: offsite PDF

The attached image shows the location of our count loop relative to the Keauhou Ranch pastures, Kulani Prison, Kulani Cone, Na Lua Mahoe, and the surrounding forests and lava fields. The loop is in a koa reforestation area within the ranch, bordering intact native forest on the East. Kulani Correctional Facility is the buildings to the northeast. Kulani Cone to the southeast of the count area has white specks at its summit, which are the communication towers. The twin pit craters of Na Lua Mahoe are to the east of it. Lava fields and kipukas of the higher elevation slopes of Mauna Loa are to the West.

Bird Counts: (Species Codes Here)

station	time	APAP	IIWI	HAAM	OMAO	ELEP	AKIP	HCRE	JAWE	RBLE	NOCA	Notes
point count 1	0907	5		3		4	2	1	3			5 minutes
point count 2	0938	11	1	4	3	3			1		1	5 minutes
travelling count 1	0848	13		7	3	4			1			20 min., 335m
travelling count 2	0920	24	2	10	3	5	1		1	1		18 min., 335m
travelling count 3	0954	22	3	6	2	3	2		1	2		10 min., 200m
travelling count 4	1022	12		4	1	2			4			10 min., 400m
station	time	APAP	IIWI	HAAM	OMAO	ELEP	AKIP	HCRE	JAWE	RBLE	NOCA	Notes