I realize the title to this blog sounds like some Hawaiian version of an Aesop's fable. Maybe I'll try writing it, but for now, it was just the most convenient way to summarize the bird encounters I had yesterday.
We’re out at transect six, finding points along the steep slope of the gully, from which old Ohia and Koa reach skyward. I hear a croak from above us, and look around wildly, the sound vaguely familiar, suggesting something to me before I can put a name to it. There, above our heads, two Io fly, skimming the cliff on which we stand. I point and call excitedly, “Io! Two Io, look, one is dark the other is light!” I raise my binoculars and watch the spectacular pair, who continue to call and exclaim about their flight together. They soar downhill, surfing on the undulating forest surface, the very tips of their wings bent upward from the draft, like Red-tails. I lose sight of them as they blend into the complex pattern of the endless forest below.
I’m driving in the truck back to the field station. Annie is up front and Anh Nguyet in the back. The roads are like the surface of an unsettled ocean. At night, I continue to feel as if I’m riding the swells. Today, the dust swirls around us as I slow down for a particularly steep bump, edging the 4WD truck up slowly so as to avoid bouncing and thus scraping the undercarriage. I’m concentrating on the road so much that I don’t see what Annie does. “Look,” she says suddenly. She’s pointing up the road. I can see a small chicken-like bird paused in the shade of a Koa tree at the side of the two-track. Barely discernible is her red skin patch on her face, like a scarlet silk mask. “Kalij,” I say, slowing down. “Female, look she’s all brown, not dark black-blue like the male.” Then we see lots of little fluffballs scurrying around the female Kalij’s feet. Annie squeals in delight, “ooh, chicks!” Indeed, tiny yellow and brown striped chicks peer at us bemusedly until we edge too close in the truck. Some particular personal space boundary crossed, Mama Kalij reacts by striding off purposefully into the tall grass. The baby chicks try following her, frantically running, tripping, fluttering and bubbling around like chaotic popcorn. As we go slowly by, each of us craning our necks for a look at the chicks, they seem to me like unorganized ninjas, careening here and there as they flee the unbeatable truck monster.