Behind me, the clouds are rising from the lowlands, seeming to be rushing towards me and at the same time stopped stock-still in time. The dust puffs up from my footfalls as I stride down the patchy dirt road, a jug of soapy water in one hand and several sets of plastic bowl bug traps in the other. I’m headed for a grassland point, where I will set out the bug traps to sample the arthropod community of this habitat. I reach the point and set out the bowls, filling each with sudsy water and carefully scraping the white scum from the surface of the water. The reflective surface of the water is apparently better for attracting insects to their watery doom. I then take a northerly bearing and pace out 50 meters. My stride makes for about 60 paces. I set out bug traps at this location as well, and then repeat the process at bearings of 120 and 240.
While I have been working, bent over my bowls, the stealthy clouds have caught up with me and mist now walks between the trees in the distance. The fog begins striding towards me and quickly I am surrounded by various shades of white. I’m glad to have my compass and an obvious road to follow back to the truck. I see that now the dust lies still, cowed by the moisture in the air. The toes of my boots gather small dark wet dots, which bleed into the clinging dirt.
I look up to a multitude of whirring wings. The mists have shrouded the land so completely that the sound tumbles out of the clouds, it origin unknown. But when the whiteness parts, I can see a gaunt skeleton of a tree against the sky. From its bony bare branches stringy yellowish moss grows like a scraggly old man’s beard. All through the network of bearded branches, small birds flutter, giving the mists their voice.
The number of birds surprises me (at least ten within a small area of the tree), as does their relative silence. The group is made up entirely of Amakihi and Japanese White-eyes, birds that usually twitter and call effusively. While their thrumming wings alerted me to their presence, I can only hear very soft chips coming from their throats. They seem intent on their mysterious business. I look through my binoculars, now curious to see what they could find so engrossing.
All along the branches, the birds lean up against the fog-wetted moss and flutter their wings and flick their tails. They are bathing in the dew caught on the vegetation from the passing mists. One Amakihi, clinging precariously the the bark, leans way down to take advantage of a spot underneath the branch where no one has yet soaked up the moisture. Another bird stands tall to quiver himself into some overhanging moss, a perfect shower if I ever saw one. All the birds are behaving as if they were standing in a puddle of water. I suppose in such a place as Hakalau, where the rains come in these soft breaths, the birds have learned that misty moss can serve as a shower source.