How does one escape cooking and doing dishes on a holiday like Thanksgiving?
Well, one way is to volunteer to support the Onizuka Center for International Astronomy Visitor Information Station (VIS) on Mauna Kea public star gazing program. We were treated to Thanksgiving dinner of Turkey, Dressing, Mashed Potatoes and Cranberry Jelly as well as other side treats. Then we helped out at the VIS for the rest of the evening until 10pm.
We started the day by spending a relaxed morning through to early afternoon at home. We got projects done around the house and organized our Christmas lists. Then about 3:30pm, we headed out toward the mountain.
The drive up was quite entertaining along our route up Waikoloa Access Road and across Saddle Road! There were several small flocks of Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) along the way that appeared completely unaware of how lucky they were on this particular day. 😉 The preferred flavor for much of this island seems to be pit roasted Wild Pig.
Come to think of it, we didn’t even see any wild pigs today. Not even the ones that clash with motor vehicles and lose. We even saw several of the requisite Erckel’s Frankolin (Francolinus erckelli) and flocks of smaller, skittish birds that were too distant and too fast to ID accurately; although, they looked like house sparrows and saffron finches.
We added the female Kalij Pheasant (Lophura leucomelanos) to our list of sightings since this was a first for me. I had seen the male already; but the female is VERY shy and cautious as you can see by my dark, less than optimal photo of her. She – moving through the brush, the dimming light of evening, and my 70-200mm Telephoto Lens at max made it impossible to avoid motion blur without the time to set up a tri-pod. We saw a lot of other wildlife too.
There were several wild goats with impressive horns grazing the fields of long dried grass near prickly pear cacti. There were several new blades of grass that had come up in among the dead grasses since the recent and heavy fog that leaves a layer of watering dew. The goats were seeming to enjoy it all in a relaxed fashion. I snapped as many pictures as I could before they all finally decided they did not like our dallying proximity. 🙂 Just after we saw the goats, we saw Mouflon Sheep (Ovis orientalis) grazing the new grass shoots by the road side right where Andy predicted as well! Hmmm…he isn’t getting to know Saddle Road, is he? 😉
These are very possibly the “mouflon-feral domestic sheep crossbreed” that “was developed and released on Mauna Kea in 1962” as mentioned in this report on the sheep and other introduced “ungulates” that are “detrimental to Hawaii’s native ecosystems”: “Controlling Wild Sheep and Deer…”.
As well as this article at HonoluluAdvertiser.com, “Park issues call for sheep hunters”.
I like the sheep and goats and donkeys; however, when their numbers get out of hand and the native ecosystems suffer, the populations need to be brought back to manageable sizes; but I don’t always like the way this has to be done 🙁 In addition to the a fore mentioned animals, we saw the cattle that are often grazing in the unseen areas.
There are many fences that have been constructed to keep the ungulates out so the native vegetation can get a chance to recover and to keep particular native wildlife from starving out or going (dare I say) extinct.
