kiawe, koa haole, parrots, haoles and surf films

Beth and I went to the Kona Surf Film Festival last night. Check out their webpage.  They have some good video tidbits if you are looking for something cool to watch.  It was good.  One video offered a testament to the appeal of surfing: 200+ people sat outside in the bitter cold Hawaiian winter winds and watched over and hour of pretty similar shots of the same guy catching wave after pretty similar wave.  If it is that mesmerizing for us to watch, I'm sure that it is that much more fun to do.  There, I've revealed myself to be a total surfing nube.  The ocean is still pretty scary to this flatlander.

Some thoughts:
I'm getting cold here in the evenings.  Don't go thinking it's going to be all sunshine in Hawaii.  You need to bring a long sleeve t-shirt for when the sun goes down, or those 70 degree nights will chill you to the bone.

Cellana must make employees meet a quota of social events every month... it kind of feels like I'm a freshman in college again, with all these familiar, but unknown faces everywhere I go.  We're going to a "yankee swap" aka white elephant gift exchange tonight.  I'm going to take attendance.  Unfortunately, I could not find a single christmas sweater or even a T-shirt at the thrift stores here!  What ever shall I wear?


Ok, today's feature:  The Noisy Parrots of the Lot Next Door.

Not a great picture, I know.  This one was checking me out from the moment it landed.  It had enough after three photos similar to this one, then shrieked to it's buddies, and they all flew away.  I guess they don't like people. From what I can gather, they are Red Masked, or Cherry Headed Conures.  Native to Equador and Peru.  Apparently, they make bad pets, and got released.  I guess they bite, and I can testify they they are noisy. When we first moved in here, they came over every morning to hang out and eat Kiawe seeds in the trees next door (which is from the same part of South America!).  Sources say they are wary of people in the wild; that explains still loads of Kiawe seeds next door and no parrots.  Habitat invasion!
I don't think there are many Conures in Hawaii, but it looks like they are in stable populations.  However, they are endangered in Equador and Peru.  Another example of an exotic species successfully naturalizing in Hawaii!

In the picture above, you can (kind of) see the yellow flower spikes of the Kiawe (say: Key-ah-vey) trees.  At first, I struggled to tell them apart from the Koa Haole (say: how-lee), which also lives in the lot next door.  But, lucky for you, dear reader, I have cracked their code.
Specifically:

 Kiawe leaves are once-compounded

Kiawe has nasty thorns (but these are vairable in size and often hard to see)

Koa Haole has twice compounded leaves, which are more orderly and more delicate

Koa Haole has many, dark, clusterd seed pods.  Sometimes, you can find its white spherical flowers.

OK, here is the best way to tell the two apart:
Koa Haole has lots of brown bean pods in clusters all over the trees.  They are not more than about 15' tall.

Kiawe is about 30' tall, fuller, and has single yellow bean pods, much less conspicuous than Koa Haole's.

Here is a picture of a Kiawe in the middle of a field of Koa Haole.  case closed.

Koa Haole is named after the Koa tree, a majestic endemic more common in the wetter and higher forests.  It was an important tree to the native hawaiians, prized for its wood which was used for canoes and surfboards.  The flowers are similar, but yellow.  "Haole" means forgiener, generally, but nowadays is commonly a racial slur for whities. So "Koa Haole" literaly means "forgien Koa," but could now be construed to mean "white/white-man Koa," which has meaning on two levels instead of one.  Now that's what you pay me for.

One time, Beth tried to make friends with the parrots. It worked!

Selected sources:  Parrots sure are charismatic!

"Tracking O'ahu's wild Parrots" http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=10372980

"Red Masked Conures" http://www.avianweb.com/redmaskedconure.html

"The Wild Parrots of Kailua Kona" http://www.westhawaiitoday.com/articles/2008/09/10/features/features01.txt

Back in business!

Hiya hiya!
We got the internet up and running at our new house!  I'll be posting frequently again-- if staring at the computer doing resumes and job applications doesn't drive me nuts.

Happy thanksgiving, and goodbye to November.
Beth and I are pretty well moved in here now.  I think Beth is going to do something with some photos she took of our place...  I'm trying to figure out what to do with the comment that the blog is "very domestic."  I think I'll embrace it, but stop short of posting home pics right off the bat.
Here is our address, in case you were wondering to send all that stuff you've been getting for us:

75-192 Alakai St. Rear Apt.
Kailua-Kona, HI, 96740

Best parts of the last week or two we've been floating anchorless without the net:

College buddy Laura came to visit with her man Nick for thanksgiving!  We bumped and rattled their little Hyundai over the 1801 lava field near the airport, then hoofed it over the last section into the remote beach of Makalwena.  It was a holiday weekend, so it was pretty busy for how remote it was.  Still, though, "a little slice of paradise," as Laura said. 

Thanksgiving, of course.  We had two: one with Beth's coworkers, one just the two of us.  I have to report, sadly, that the (in)famous Bevis Green Jello Salad didn't go over well with the locals.  It does, happily, keep well.  It's pretty good with coffee.  Must be the pint of heavy whipping cream.  Now how could anyone not like something with that in the ingredients?

Note: 1) the awesome mugs Beth found us! 2) one of the 4 green coconuts Beth harvested from our front yard.  Them things are hard to get into.  Here she is showing appropriate strain:

Here she is working on other kitchen goodies:

Another highlight: my first taste of the legendary Hawaiian culinary creation Spam Musubi.  Basically, about a cup of white rice and a quarter-inch thick slab of spam wrapped in nori.  It's that simple.  But the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts, right?

This is Spam Musubi in its native environment.  And that, dashboard, cellophane and all, is exactly how it looked when I ate it.  Us bike commuters got to keep our calories up!

I hope to kick off a new aspect to the blog later today or tomorrow:  more posts about plants and animals I see here in Hawaii.  Something to supplement the raw shock value of the spiders.   I hope it interests you as much as it does me. There is some pretty cool stuff here, and I want to document it as much for myself as I want to show you.  Perhaps I will start off with the ubiquitous and cute house gecko, as most people seem to think these are pretty cool!  Stay tuned!