I mentioned in this thread that I attended a lecture presented by Wally Johnson of Montana State University about the kolea. Here's some of what I have in my notes. My notes aren't very organized, I'm afraid. I just wrote down what I found interesting whenever I heard it.
You know, the more I know about these really cute birds, the more I love them. They're so cool!
- There was a kolea on the lawn of the Hilton Hawaiian Village. She had a blow-dart stuck in her neck. Some hotel employees reported it to the kolea researchers. They were able to trap her, remove the dart, and let her go. She was named Hilton.
Interestingly, trapping her was easy the first time: the researchers placed nuts and mealworms in a little spring-activated net, and they caught her quickly, removing the dart and banding her foot. When they tried to catch her the same way the following summer so they could give her a little physical, she wouldn't go near the bait.
- Johann Forrester, a member of Captain Cook's second voyage to Hawaii, journaled about the kolea, having seen it in several parts of the pacific. This may be the earliest record.
- There's a woman named Annette who leads tours to Alaska in late May for people who want to see the kolea in their breeding ground. Brochures are available.
- The American Golden Plover and Pacific Golden Plover are two different species who look very much alike. One huge difference is that the American Plover, which spends its summer and winter months in Argentina, is not as adaptable; as its stomping grounds have slowly been taken over by development, it has had difficulty finding suitable feeding areas. The kolea is much more adaptable, as is obvious when one sees it on golf courses, in parking lots, and on front lawns!
The American Golden Plover flies over the Atlantic on its way from Alaska to Argentina, but over the Gulf of Mexico and the Midwest on its way north.
It shares breeding grounds with the Kolea in Alaska, but the birds have different calls and different behaviors.
- As we know, the kolea is very territorial, but that's during the day when it's feeding. It tends to congregate in certain places at night, such as on the roof of Longs at Ala Moana and on the roof of Star Market at Kahala Mall. It returns each morning to its same feeding area.
- The kolea seems to like humans, or it at least isn't overly wary of them. The lecturer showed a picture of a man on Johnston Atoll feeding fifty of them!
- It seems to get along just fine with other birds. You'll often see a kolea sharing space with mynahs and doves; just not with other koleas!
- An early (1933) mention of the kolea in the Honolulu Advertiser says that the bird is good to eat. This seems to have stopped being a practice in the islands.
- In their winter plumage (that's the brown speckled plumage), males and females are indistinguishable. In their spring plumage, the males are more strikingly colored; that dark black neck and belly and sharp white line are not seen on the female; if it looks to you as if the kolea in your yard is taking its time moulting, and if it's about time for it to fly north, it's probably a female. The female's white stripe is less noticable, but it's there.
- The adult birds fly back to Hawaii in August, but the juveniles don't arrive until October or November. You can see how the odds are stacked against the young ones; first, they have to survive the journey, flying here with other birds who've never made the trip; then, they have to find somewhere to feed when all the older birds have already claimed their favorite spots. There's an 80% survival rate among adults from one season in Hawaii to the next. Each mated couple produces about four eggs, so if the population is constant, you can see how many of the little ones don't make it. Most probably drop into the sea.
- In order to catch the birds for banding, researchers put out 60-foot-long nets in the early morning light. When the birds are picked from the nets, they don't bite, claw, or squirm -- they just lie there, docile. 1000 birds have been banded in the last twenty years.
- Lately, in addition to the band on the foot, a small (less than 2 grams) transmitter has been glued to the feathers on the bird's back. The transmitter has a small trailing antenna that helps researchers track the birds in Alaska. The birds don't seem to mind the antenna at all, and the mortality rate among antenna'd birds hasn't changed. When the bird molts, the transmitter is, of course, also dropped.
- When the birds fly to Hawaii, they know they have a predictable food source; however, sometimes when they get to Alaska, there's still snow on the ground, so they have to wait for the snow to melt and must have enough stored fat to keep them going.
- Some birds who are about to fly back weigh as much as 200 grams; that's up from their fat-free weight of 100 grams!
- The male builds the nest, using its belly and feet to dig a little bowl and then cushions it with lichens. The birds get agitated when you're close to the nest -- with vocalizations and other displays, such as feathers puffing out. Both sexes incubate the eggs: males usually during day, and females at night.
- They lay huge eggs--about a quarter of the weight of the female. And they usually lay four eggs! When they hatch, they're well-developed and ready to go. They're agile and ambulatory at birth, ready to begin feeding themselves.
- The chicks are cute! Golden-yellow and dark brown. And downy.
- The parents spend some time keeping the chicks warm. They spend a few days around the nest, and then they leave. The birds will follow the parents but the parents don't take care of them any more.
- The males return to the same breeding site, but the females don't. They choose a mate based on how good his breeding site is.
- The kolea's winter range is throughout south Pacific and New Zealand and around the rim of Australia and Tazmania. Also south-east Asia.
The summer territory goes from western Alaska into Siberia.
Some New Zealand birds go first to Japan, and then across to Alaska.
- The researcher went to Saipan last summer to look at the koleas there. Koleas in Saipan were drab in color. The terrain was dry, with very few insects. There were not that many koleas on Saipan (200 or 300). They were only 120 grams with a flight range of maybe 900 miles, based on weight. The birds in Hawaii were 140 or 150 grams at about the same time. People on Saipan don't know about the bird.
- The kolea's longest recorded flight is -- get ready -- 70 hours!
- However, it's believed the flight generally takes 40 to 50 hours, which translates to about sixty miiles an hour! This is "probably the fastest-flying sustained flight bird in the world. About a quarter of a million wing-beats during the trip."
- Some birds stay here instead of making the flight back. Typically, these are juveniles who haven't stored up enough body fat.
- As many of you know, the birds flock just before they're about to make the flight home. Popular known flocking sites are at Tripler hospital, the airport, and Kualoa.
- This is my favorite, favorite thing I learned: Someone happened to be watching an aiport flock just as it took off. They were watched through binoculars until they were just barely visible, when they joined another kolea flock already on its way! It's possible they were waiting until they saw the larger flock and then flew up to join them. The larger flock could have been from somewhere else in Hawaii, or perhaps elsewhere in the Pacific.
You know, the more I know about these really cute birds, the more I love them. They're so cool!
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