Wednesday brought slightly wetter conditions that again dried and calmed a bit in the afternoon. We descended the Western leg of the West Honomanu Gulch Loop. We counted 2 500m transects (1 & 4), and did 4 point counts. This side of the loop has a great lookout point over a gulch at station 1B, with numerous tall 'ohi'a trees that often attract 'akohekohe and i'iwi. The lower end, along "transect 4" there are many steep and tangled areas as the trail dips in and out of a couple of gulches. Some of the slopes have few/no handholds and easily become slippery slides. Clermontia tuberculata was in fruit, the same as I found last year - I'd love to find a flower some day. Gunnera was both in flower and fruit.

One of the highlights of this transect last year was finding my first Maui snail (succineid), which got attached to my pack. I looked for snails through the same section this year, but unfortunately didn't see any.

Point counts:
01A: 0743 APAP-4+ IIWI-2 HAAM-2 MAAL-2 JAWE-3 RBLE-1 HOFI-1 AKOH-1
01B: 0835 APAP-7 IIWI-3 HAAM-1 MAAL-4 AKOH-2
04A: 0910 APAP-5 IIWI-2 HAAM-2 MAAL-3 AKOH-1
04B: 1024 APAP-3 IIWI-1 HAAM-1 MAAL-1 AKOH-1 JAWE-1 RBLE-3

Transect:
Full out-and-back revealed the same 'akohekohe locations both ways:
1 at station 1A
2 halfway down transect 1
2-3 at station 1B
2 at station 4A
1 around station 4B

We did not detect any parrotbill on this side of the loop on Wednesday, which is the same as I remembered from last year. In fact, the 'akohekohe also seemed to be in the same spots as they were last year. Along transect 1 we encountered 11 'alauahio, but only 1 along the lower transect 4 which has little/no canopy.