A Laysan albatross living on the remains of an island 1,200 miles northwest of Honolulu is the oldest-known bird living in the wild. Her name is Wisdom, and she is 63 years old. Wisdom was first banded in 1956 as an adult when she was estimated to be five years old. But she could just…
Tag: kauai
Don’t Count Hurricane Ana Out Yet.
The seven words people on Kauai fear the most: The hurricane is going south of Hawaii. When I got off a whale research boat on Friday, my phone pinged and chirped and downloaded a few dozen emails in an effort to sync itself with my land-based world: News about a hospitalized uncle, a pregnant friend who…
September in the Rear View.
September’s come and gone. How did that happen? I blame it on Mark Twain. My head was down all month, re-living his escapades in Hawaii. I poured through his 25 dispatches for the Sacramento Union. I dug into his notebooks and letters. I scoured a gem of a book–Mark Twain and Hawaii–by Walter Francis Frear….
An Afternoon of Monk Seal—and People—Watching
By the time I get to the remote end of a North Shore beach where two Hawaiian monk seals are hauled out, there are already three naked people under the heliotrope tree where I usually sit. But they’re nice, offer me a piece of their Peruvian fruit, yacón, and report the seals galumphed onto the…
Fishwatching: The One that Got Away
There is really only one piece of equipment essential for snorkeling. Technically, you don’t even need a snorkel. Or a swimsuit, for that matter. But you do need a mask. My friend Heather and I had long talked about conducting a REEF survey at Makua on Kauai’s North Shore. So, a couple weeks ago, Heather…
Plastic for Dinner? Sound Good?
“Activism is the rent I pay for living on this planet.” Alice Walker This week on Kauai, a whiff of white ginger caught me unawares while I was walking my two dogs before bed. My head whipped around as if I’d seen an old friend in a crowded airport. “It is you,” I said when…
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