Exploring the Big Island with Em

This summer I was invited to go to Hawaii with Emily and her family. This post will be a trip recap talking about what we did and all the cool plants and animals we saw on the Big Island.

When we arrived the weather was looking a little stormy. It ended up staying that way for most of the week but it only rained on us one day of the trip. As we drove from the airport to the hotel, it was cool to see the massive fields of lava rock.

There were a few resident cats living in the parking lot, one was friendly. Feral cats are always a bit painful to see since they are really bad for wildlife, but I still couldn't help petting them.

Our second day we visited Puako Petroglyph Park. A short hike through the trees and over lava rock lead us to a huge area of petroglyphs. They were mostly carvings of people and there were hundreds, it was really interesting and cool to see. 

One of the cooler invasive species we saw were these valley carpenter bees, native to North America. The males are all yellow and the females are jet black, but the coolest thing was how massive they were. There were lots around the resort so they were a frequent sighting.

In the resort we also saw lots of other invasive species, like the adorable gold dust day geckos, yellow-billed cardinals, and rosy-faced lovebirds among many others.

Some of the native species we saw around the resort included black-crowned night herons and green sea turtles. There were lots of native fish around the resort, my favorite was 2 species of porcupine fish in the same lagoon. There were also needlefish, morays, and tons of butterflyfish and triggerfish.

By far the coolest native species we saw at the resort was this pair of nene. Me and Em were heading to the beach when we ran into these guys. They were super curious and even approached us. The one with a leg band is most likely the mother of the other goose, which was just born this year. It was really cool to see these geese so up close, definitely one of my highlights from the whole trip.

One day we decided to visit Pu'uhonua O Honaunau park which was supposed to be one of the best spots for snorkeling on the island. On the way we stopped at an area called The End of the World, a cliff jumping and deep water solo spot. I climbed an easier route first, later I tried the harder route through the middle of the cave but didn't get super far. It was really fun climbing a bit on the trip and jumping off the top was awesome.

After that we headed to the snorkel spot, which turned out to be the best snorkeling I've ever experienced. The water was crystal clear and there was so much coral. The schools of yellow tangs were so big they were visible from shore.

Here are some of my favorite sightings:

Endemic Hawaiian cleaner wrasse

Yellow tangs

Guinea fowl pufferfish

Ringtail Maori wrasse

Finescale triggerfish

Pinktail triggerfish

Yellowtail coris

Raccoon butterflyfish

Barred filefish

Redfin butterflyfish

Whitemouth moray

Achilles tang

Another day we visited the farmer's market in Kona. It was small but there were a few fruit stands that had a ton of good looking fruit. We bought some longan, rose apples, and 2 pineapples. It was all delicious.

This was another cool bee we found, Megachile fullawayi. It's a species of megachiline leafcutter bee, one of my favorite groups of bees, and is only found on Pacific islands although it is introduced in Hawaii.

Another cool arthropod was this rusty millipede Em found in the resort.

My favorite day of the whole trip was when we drove across the island to Volcanoes National Park. The views driving across the island were amazing and as we crossed over the island the landscape went from dry, lava fields to lush rainforest.

Our first stop was a short hike to a view of the Kiluea crater. Although it wasn't active, it was really cool to look down into the volcano.

Next we hiked down into the crater to look for native birds and plants. Here's some of the coolest animals and plants we saw:

Endemic Hawaii Amakihi

Endemic Apapane

Lots of cool endemic ferns, including some that were the size of trees:

This was my favorite fern we saw

Some cool liverworts:

And this really cool golden moss:

After hiking around the park for a while we decided to drive down to the coast where there was a sea arch. Along the way we stopped at a really cool lava tube that you could walk through. When we got to the coast it was insanely windy, so much that it was blowing the car around. But we braved the wind and made the short hike to the sea arch. I was really excited to see tons of Black Noddies flying around, a bird I hoped to see this trip.

Our last stop of the day was a small nature loop on our way back. I had really hoped to see an Oma'o on the trip. This secretive thrush is only found on the Hawaiian islands. I wasn't super optimistic because they're known to be hard to spot, much more frequently heard than seen. After not hearing or seeing one all day I had accepted it was unlikely, but wanted to check one more spot. After walking the loop and not seeing much, as we were walking back to the car I noticed a small gray bird perched near the top of a tree in the distance. It was an Oma'o! It was really cool to see this endemic species and was my favorite bird sighting of the trip.

The last cool place we snorkeled was a city park in Kona. Although it wasn't as clear or had as much coral as Pu'uhonua O Honaunau, it was so shallow that it felt like snorkeling in an aquarium.

Here are my favorite sightings from this spot:

Lagoon triggerfish

Peppered moray

Hawaiian cleaner wrasse and a Spotted boxfish

Orangespot surgeonfish

Palenose parrotfish

Pacific bullethead parrotfish

Threadfin butterflyfish

Christmas wrasse

Guineafowl pufferfish

Rockmover wrasse

Dark surgeonfish

Bluespine unicornfish

Pacific orange-spine unicornfish

The trip was really fun and I had a great time exploring the flora and fauna of the island with Em. I wanted to finish this post by including some photos of us climbing some strangler fig trees near the resort. I almost got attacked by bees in the first tree. The second one was safe though.