Aloha Friday update and latest field blog from Hōlanikū! 
Aloha everyone!
The summer season is moving along amazingly! The weather has been cooler so far this summer compared to last year. We got three inches of rain in a single day in late July, and our rain catchments are full again. The team has also been hard at work constructing three new rain catchments! August is warming up a little more, and over the past few days our winds have been coming more from the south instead of the east.
We said goodbye to Tiana, Mack, and Calypso at the end of July. It’s been quieter and a bit strange going from a population of seven down to four. Just before they left, we had a beautiful dinner on the pier, and we also played Bingo in Spanish! Some of the prizes Mack and Calypso offered were glass fishing floats they had found while conducting Hawaiian monk seal surveys this season. I was super pumped that my first glass ball this season came from a Lotería win! Woot wooooot!
They’ve been back on Oʻahu for a week or two now, and we’re sending aloha to them and communities across the main Hawaiian Islands still recovering from Lālā. Our hearts are also with the wildlife of Kamole (Laysan Island), which experienced hurricane conditions yesterday. We look forward to learning more about the impacts once partner agencies are able to safely assess the island. Here on Hōlanikū, we’re keeping a close eye on Lālā as it continues through the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
We’ve watched a few films over the past several weeks. When we had everyone here, we watched a French stop-motion film, A Town Called Panic. We also recently watched Listers, Across the Universe, and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl! I brought out a board game called Carcassonne. We like it a lot, even though we haven’t gotten around to playing it much. Diane is still making some bomb ice cream, and Marsh recently cooked up some delicious chicken fried rice, which I think has been one of the favorite dishes so far.
Around the island, we’re just starting to see our first ʻuaʻu kani (Wedge-tailed Shearwater) chicks. Our noio (Black Noddy) and noio kōhā (Brown Noddy) chicks are growing, and our ʻaoʻū (Christmas Shearwater) chicks are becoming much larger puffballs now. ʻEwaʻewa (Sooty Tern) chicks are quite large, and we are seeing some of the first fledglings. We’ve also seen a few pākalakala (Gray-backed Tern) juveniles flying around.
Now in mid-August, our kaʻupu (Black-footed Albatross) are long gone, and we only have a few mōlī (Laysan Albatross) left. Their numbers have dramatically decreased over the past two weeks as more and more chicks have fledged and headed out to sea.
We are so, so excited to see what the rest of this season has in store. We are forever grateful for what Hōlanikū gifts us, from the birds dancing in the skies to the stunning seas, sunrises, and sunsets.
And over the past couple of nights, the skies have slowly begun filling with returning nunulu (Bonin Petrels) — my FAVORITE!
Mahalo nui loa,
Dwight
Activities conducted under Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument Permit PMNM-2026-01. Hawaiian monk seal activities conducted under NMFS Permit No. 27552.
