Never a dull moment at Hōlanikū! Enjoy the latest field blog from Nick
Aloha! What a week! To be completely honest, I was going to let someone else from the team write the first post-tsunami blog, but then a Red-necked Stint showed up, and I wanted to talk about it. The first RNST observed in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands since 1983, this little Calidris sandpiper breeds in Siberia (and sometimes Western Alaska) and then finds its winter home in Australia and its surrounding regions. What a treat for it to be our first summer vagrant. Our Kure Red-necked Stint was observed foraging on the old USCG runway with a group of about 50 Ruddy Turnstones — which are still very abundant here, with 125 being observed on 30 July.
Regarding the tsunami: we were in communication with our Honolulu contacts within minutes of the tsunami watch/advisory being sent out as well as throughout the warning period. Emergency protocol ensued and we mustered and prepared accordingly. It certainly helped that we had somewhat of a tsunami drill just a week or two before the real thing occurred! Fortunately, none of our camp or really any portion of the interior of the island was inundated with water from any of the waves. A big takeaway from the recent weather events is that #1: It pays to be prepared, and #2: Native vegetation rocks. Kure has really great dunes which is largely due to the Naupaka. Naupaka has these really great shallow, fibrous root systems that catch sand and can withstand large discharges of wind and surf. On the other hand, Heliotrope trees/shrubs can outcompete Naupaka (if left unmanaged) in the same dune habitat and are not as hearty. This is all to say that even if the waves had reached the vegetation line, our Naupaka-filled dunes would have been able to withstand/mitigate inundation towards the interior of the island which is not only great for us, but also for the ground-nesting seabirds which are currently rearing their young.
Speaking of rearing young, it’s getting to the end of the albatross nesting season. Most of the Black-footed Albatross have fledged and the Laysan Albatross are getting there. Additionally, I’ve been fascinated by our Gray-backed Tern population! These birds are nesting in 22 different locales across the island in various habitat types, not seeming to prefer one more than another. As of today, we’re up to a whopping 318 breeding adults with chicks already fledging. As the terns start to wrap up their breeding (for now) I think I’ll start to count boobys. I’m sure another Kurean will talk about the tsunami in more detail later, I think I’d rather just talk about birds. Fingers crossed a cool gull flies our way or more shorebirds. No more tsunamis though please.