Kauai's Traveling Seabirds

For the first time outside of a summer month, I visited Kauai in April. In fact, of my many trips to the Hawaiian Islands, it was only my third time not traveling to the state in the summer. It was also my very first springtime visit to Hawaii.

On my only visit to Hawaii in the winter, to the Big Island a year ago in February, I was overjoyed by the number of humpback whales I witnessed near the shore. However on this recent April trip to Kauai, I was just missing whale season, the last of the behemoths having already departed for their feeding grounds in the Arctic.

Nesting seabirds were also on my mind as a number of species lay their eggs and and raise their young on Kauai. Several albatross, shearwater, tropicbird, booby, and a frigatebird species all congregate on a specific peninsula, Kilauea Point, on the north shore of the island. The site of an historic lighthouse, the area is now a National Wildlife Refuge. Some of the birds live at sea most of the year, only visiting Kauai when they're ready to nest.

Unfortunately the refuge had limited hours, outside of my availability, so I could only peer at the jut of land and century-old complex from across a railing. Red-footed boobies gathered in nearby trees, while at least one white-tailed tropicbird flew by. Rarer species like the Laysan albatross along with the wedge-tailed and Newell's shearwaters were out of sight if they had even arrived yet.

Later, along the Na Pali Coast on the rugged northwest corner of Kauai, I saw another species of booby, the brown, of which several individuals perched along cliff edges. Much more numerous were black noddies, unique among most of the seabirds I've mentioned in that they don't spend weeks or months at a time foraging on distant seas, instead ranging within some tens of miles of land.

In sharp contrast to all these birds, Pacific golden plovers don't visit Hawaii to nest at all, rather they winter throughout the islands after breeding far to the north in the Arctic. While their migrations are sometimes close geographically and timewise with those of the whales I had just missed, the seasons that the two animals' bear young are clearly out of phase.

I've seen plovers before, on Kauai two-and-a half years ago in late September, and then on Maui in October of the following year. They were small, plain, nondescript birds, colors of mostly brown and white in their feathers, hunting for bugs in the manicured lawns of resorts. It was hard to imagine that these unassuming birds had just flown 8,000 miles!

In contrast, I encountered several Pacific golden plovers shortly before their return journeys north on my recently-completed April trip to Kauai. What a difference a half year on a tropical island made; the birds were dazzling in their breeding plumage! Their brown speckles sparkled gold, and their faces were jet black, bordered by a bold, white mane-like stripe.

The plovers were dressed to the nines and ready to fly - not to mention also mate, nest, and raise their young on a distant Arctic coastline. I was soon flying away too, calling an end to my week-long vacation. Alas, I had no adventurous plan to return next winter.