Monday, January 14, 2008
Today Steve and I went to Hawai'i Volcano National Park. We warmed ourselves at steam vents where rainwater heated by magma hundreds of feet below the ground spewed out of bath-tub-sized holes in the ground. At Kilauea Crater we saw steaming fumaroles and coughed on the sulfurous fumes. Tern-like white-tailed tropic birds (koa’e kea), two feet long, half of which is a streaming tail, soared over the crater.
At Thurston Lava Tube, I saw an apapane, a small red honey creeper who likes the native ‘ohi’a trees and gets nectar from their red bottle-brush-like flowers. I loved listening to his beautiful, whimsical whistles, buzzes and trills.
