Science begins with observation.
If we don’t see what’s going on around us, questions about how things work or why things are the way they are never arise. Lazy eyes lead to dull scientific minds.
If we don’t notice changes, outliers, novelties our scientific curiosity is taken out at the knees. Imagine running a complex, granular experiment and… missing important data that’s right there for the grasping.
We are lucky at HNS: there is so much to observe without even trying!
Nothing quite inspires a long-term interest in looking around than a white tern chick popping up in one of our kukui-nut trees.
Watching chicks get fed and watching them learn to fly is thrilling!
Right now, we are watching a pair of white terns (manu-o-ku) checking out the kukui-nut tree closest to Kalanianaole Highway. As they are often there during 2G’s brain break, our fingers are crossed that they will select the tree as a nesting spot.
This is the same tree Ibuki hatched in in February. Before that, many other chicks have launched from this very tree!
How do we know when the terns are in? We have to watch the skies, listen for their less-than-melodious calls, and scan kukui-nut-tree perches every chance we get.
We also must learn to differentiate the on-ground and in-flight differences between white tern, cattle egret and white pigeons! Close observation is key. And— it doesn’t take long to see the difference in wing beats, flight patterns, and even body shapes at distance.
Meanwhile…
2G was enraptured when it was pointed out to them that a squawking myna bird hopping after a slightly larger myna bird on the green was, in fact, a chick/fledgling shouting “Feed me! I’m HUNGRY!” to it’s mum. Watch long enough and you are rewarded with an insect delivered to a waiting mouth!
2G was all eyes and is now ever on the lookout for the hungry baby.
Observation was key: the fledgling myna was not, on first inspection, dramatically different in size or coloration than the parent. However, on closer inspection is was clear much of its size was “fluff,” unlike the silent parent it was making a racket, and it clearly had no idea how to feed itself, mum’s endless modeling notwithstanding!
Meanwhile 2.0…
Over the past few years, the occasional and very skittish waxbill visitors to the HNS green have grown to a much bolder flock of about 30-35 birds.
These small finches — 4 inches long — are most often up to their avian shoulders in grass, so if you don’t look carefully, you can pass as many as 35 birds and not notice! The trick: look for their red beaks. Too much going on will startle them and then, like a swarm of dragonflies, they disappear!
Meanwhile 3.0…
Photographs from last year indicate our kolea (Pacific plover) was still on campus in early May.
Kolea migrate to Alaska each summer. That’s a 3,000 mile trek each way! (While back-country backpacking in Alaska, my wife and I heard the characteristic call of the kolea, and later saw them!)
Just the other day, one 2G student said they’d seen one of the kolea that hangs out near their house. The next day my wife reported seeing a wintering-in-Hawai’i kolea in Manoa, and that day after that I saw one on the UH Manoa campus as I was exiting H-1.
It seems early for the kolea to be back, but… they’re back!
2G is on high alert of the HNS kolea to return!
And now for something completely different…
A few 2G students spotted s pair of Java Fiches the other day.
At times, they nest in the roof of Glover Hall (music room). They also nest in the large (yet to be identified) tree over the lower-playground . Of late, however, they’ve been scarce.
Needless to say, we have Zebra and Ring-necked (spotted) doves, and… pigeons (no photograph needed)…
… and our very smart, very canny, trash-can diving Red-Crested Cardinals.
We have also seen — usually, and on two separate occasions — great frigatebirds flying high over the campus. (Dr. Cat thought they were tropic birds at first!)
Of course what always grabs the attention of a budding young paleontologist is the notion that birds are descended from dinosaurs!
To observation!