Earlier this summer, we asked our Facebook fans to share their favorite Hawaii adventures.  Far and away, the number one favorite adventure in Hawaii takes place on the ocean.  At least, for our Facebook fans.  Of all the water related activities mentioned, experiencing Kauai's Napali Coastline ranked right at the top.

This is LAAL K884. When I helped band it a couple months ago, it was much fluffier than here. Apart from a few tufts of grey, like sideburns, on its cheeks and a darker-colored bill. This Laysan albatross chick looks much like an adult. It weighs, however, much less than its breeding parents.

For the next two years, Kilauea Point Lighthouse will undergo rennovation. The first order of business will be to "wrap" the lens. A layer of foam will go in first, then, Tyvek and, finally, plywood. It's expected the lens will be covered for the duration of the rennovation--upwards of two years--and will be complete well in advance of the the Kilauea Lighthouse's 100th anniversary on May 1, 2013. We'll bring you details of the restoration, as well as, stories and facts about the lighthouse throughout the process.

This column was supposed to be about World Oceans Day, an event that takes place every June 8. According to a press release from The Ocean Project, the goal of World Oceans Day is “to raise awareness about the crucial role the ocean plays in our lives, and the important ways people can help to protect our shared world ocean.” 

Now’s a good time to see red-tailed tropicbirds, especially at Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge. They’re flying overhead. They’re squawking. And a few chicks on nests can be seen from one of the lookouts. What’s more this weekend is fee-free. As part of the Obama Adminstration’s America’s Great Outdoors initiative, all national parks, national wildlife refuges and many other areas managed by the Bureau of Land Management are closing their fee booths and throwing open their doors on Saturday, June 5th and Sunday, June 6th.

Yesterday, a team of us banded 31 chicks on Albatross Hill at Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge.  At this age, Laysan albatross chicks are pretty easy to capture. They are nest-site loyal—waiting for mom and dad to return from fishing trips with food—so they don’t run away. They are still two months away from fledging, so they can’t fly away. They do clack their incredibly large three-inch bills. They poop. Sometimes, they even projectile vomit. Their biggest weapon, however, comes from their feet. 

It's Friday.  That means it's "Lighthouse Day" for me, and I couldn't ask for a better day.  Sunny skies and 74-degree temperature warms my skin and just enough of a light trade breeze keeps me from overheating.

Two weeks ago, 028 was reported with a fishing hook stuck in the corner of her mouth. Four feet or more of fishing line trailed her, wrapping around her body. People said she tried to haul out at a south shore beach here on Kauai, but the line trapped under her body as she galumphed up the beach kept tugging the hook in the corner of her mouth. After a few attempts, she retreated back to the ocean.

In Hawaii, we take our endangered humpback whales seriously. February is known as Humpback Whale Awareness Month and the last Saturdays of January, February and March are officially known as Whale Count Days for the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary. Hundreds of volunteers across the state brave potentially strong trade winds, pelting rain and searing sun to count humpback whales and record their behavior for four hours, starting at 8:00 a.m. We cancel in case of a tsunami, however, as was the case on Saturday, February 27, 2010, but we dutifully re-schedule, which is how I ended up on Crater Hill this past Saturday.

After a mile-long hike and trek along a stretch of coastline on Kauai’s north shore, I am sitting under a heliotrope tree on the beach writing this. I can’t help but pull out my camera with the super-telephoto lens and snap a few pictures of the adult Laysan albatrosses skimming the ocean’s surf, but I didn’t pack my camera to take pictures of birds, as cute as they are. 

This ball of fluff otherwise known as a Laysan Albatross chick is 7 to 10 days old here. A full two-thirds of this albatross species uses the string of Hawaiian Islands stretching from Hawaii in the southeast to Midway in the northwest as its nesting grounds. For another few days one of its parents (both mom and dad are required to see this little guy--or girl--fledge come Julyish) will sit on it until it can thermoregulate on its own. 

A few days ago, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced a plan to help remove man-made debris from coastal waters and coral reefs on and near the Hawaiian Islands. It is the first of its kind. A new year's resolution of another kind that I can get behind and shout, "Yes." 

It's a short walk from my position as an unsophisticated bird looker to birding mania, to some kind of performance attire, a laminated card, and a pair of very expensive binoculars. Thing is, I am inscrutably fond of birds. I pretend not to know them by name, but really, I do, I look them up and more and more, I recognize them by voice, too. After all, a coot does not sound like a duck, not one bit, really, and those little red hatted cardinals sound nothing like the morning doves that make such an appealing racket as the sun comes up over the Pacific. 

And now, a video that visually says what I tried to put into words in my last post: There is alway something happening at Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge. 

Early November is not known for being a busy time in Hawai'i. It's like the pause between the in-breath and out-breath. That time right before the holidays when craft fairs, parties and concerts vie for spots on my calendar and when vacationers enjoy some time off from their hectic lives. And yet, for me, early November is one of the most exciting times in Hawai'i and that just might be the best-kept Hawaiian vacation secret around. 

Next month, we expect about 100 pairs of Laysan albatrosses will return to Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge to breed, lay a single and care for their one chick until it fledges some time in July. Factor in three birds for each nest site (not all birds breed), and I don’t even need a calculator to sum up the fact that Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge doesn’t contribute much to the overall Laysan albatross population. Not compared to Midway.  But that may change.

Visit Kaua‘i’s National Wildlife Refuges during National Wildlife Refuge Week, October 11 - 17, and celebrate America’s wildlife heritage! Our National Wildlife Refuge System is made up of more than 550 refuges throughout the United States. From Alaska to Puerto Rico, from Maine to Guam, Refuges protect more than 95 million acres set aside to conserve habitat for birds and other wildlife. 

Wedge-tailed shearwaters are migratory. Just like the Pacific Golden Plover who arrived in my yard today from the Arctic—it will stay until April or May. Just like the Laysan albatross. Just like Lee Sass.  You know Lee Sass. He served as my mentor at Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, answering my myriad of questions about the seabirds--and, let me tell you, I can ask an annoying amount of questions. I recounted an incident on this blog last December about a mysterious bird perched on a rock on Moku’ae’ae Island, just north of Kilauea Point. Without looking, Lee predicted the seabird in question was a Great Frigatebird. Even with binoculars, the bird was difficult to identify. A crowd gathered. We debated. Lee stuck with his original guess; the rest of us decided the perched bird was a brown booby. Lee wasn’t convinced.  

Time. It tends to slip away all too quickly.  What with the invention of fax machines, the creation of FedEx and now the Internet, text messaging, Twitter and Facebook, we like to think our generation somehow cranked the handle of time too tightly and is now watching it unravel at an unprecedented rate. And, yet, how do we explain the aphorism “time flies,” perhaps first known in Latin as the expression tempus fugit? Was the Roman poet Virgil a poor manager of his own time? Or was he making a statement for all the people of his day, and, thereby, making the passage of time a human experience rather than a 21^st century one? 

My husband and I recently built a home in Hawaii.  Well, rather, he built it, and I shopped for the decorative items, such as new furniture, curtains, light fixtures and paint color. That’s not how it works in the bird world, specifically Red-footed boobies.

The albatrosses started hatching earlier this month.  The process of pecking at their calcium enclosure and emerging into this world is called “pipping.”  To date, we have 89 nests and 48 chicks at Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge.

 It was another Friday afternoon at Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge when a man asked what kind of bird was perched on Moku’ae’ae Island.
I lifted my binoculars and spied the profile of a seabird with a dark-colored body. My fellow volunteer Lee asked, “What color is it?” “Dark,” I said

 The walk to the historic lighthouse at Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge takes me about three minutes from the parking lot.  I call out hello to Dolly the Park Ranger at the fee booth (a mere $5 per person or free with a National Parks pass) as I go by. I note the burrows on the hillside where the wedge-tail shearwater chicks are starting to hatch at the back of three-foot tunnels.  I skirt a cliff that freefalls down to a cove where Hawaiian monk seals sometimes bask on smooth volcanic rock, and I follow the sidewalk on a narrow strip of land to the northernmost point in the main Hawaiian Islands.  As I top a slight hill, a panoramic view of the blue Pacific Ocean and a coastline of serpentine cliffs opens before me, just as if someone drew back a pair of heavy theater curtains.