Day 3 • 28 June 2016 • Bishop Museum and Manoa Valley

Today’s undertakings had a much stronger focus on strictly biological experiences, with a morning visit to the Bernice P. Bishop Museum and an afternoon hike into the lush Manoa Valley. However, biological explorers need strength, and for breakfast we tried the incomparable, delectable, warm malasadas (Portuguese donuts) at Leonard’s, a Honolulu icon. As Dakota Brooks put it, biting into one of these is a symphony of great flavor and happy feeling, as if you could bite into your favorite, fluffy, warm comforter. They are made to order with sugary topping or creamy filling and, did I mention they are warm? What an exceptional treat!

The storefront of the iconic Leonard's bakery in Honolulu. 

A sampling of four flavors of filled malasadas, including chocolate, macadamia, coconut, and vanilla. And they're warm! Mmmmh.

 At the Bishop Museum we began our visit with a behind-the-scenes look in the Vertebrate Zoology collection. We were hosted by Molly Hagemann, the collection manager, who led us into the alcohol room as well as the holy-of-holies, the dry collection, which is where specimens of many rare or even extinct Hawaiian species are stored and kept for research purposes. In the alcohol room, I gave a brief presentation on the origins of natural history collections and their importance to all facets of biodiversity and conservation research today, and Molly spoke about the tasks of collection managers. There were many excellent questions from our students, who were proving themselves eminently worthy of the moniker “honors students.” We finished the visit with a demonstration of how a scientist would examine snake specimens and collect data from them.

The main building of the Bernice P. Bishop Museum in Honolulu. This museum holds some exceptionally valuable items, including historical artifacts, items of special interest, and millions of natural history specimens (most of them insects).

Molly Hagemann, collection manager in vertebrate zoology, explains the significance of a Hawaiian fossil to my students. From left, Molly, Alex Mitchell, Ruby Resendez, Morgan Lewis, Mitzia Zambada, and Kaitlin Rickerl. Photo courtesy of Jose Huerta.

What would a museum visit be without a scientific demonstration? Dr. K is explaining how to extract data from alcohol-preserved snake specimens, and how specimens like these are allowing scientists to answer questions that hadn't even been asked when some of these specimens were collected. From left: Schawna Mitchell, Alex Mitchell, Morgan Lewis, Jose Huerta, Amanda Callahan, Ruby Resendez, and Mindy Hull. Photo courtesy of Dakota Brooks.

After the exciting visit to the collection, we visited the rest of the museum, which includes wonderful exhibits on Hawaiian history and geology, as well as a special exhibit on sharks. At lunchtime, we met up with my learnéd colleague Dr. Neal Evenhuis, who regaled us with stories of his fieldwork studying flies and gave us some of his insights for how our drone might even be useful to someone researching flies: for flies that live along the falling water of waterfalls, some in mid-fall only, it would be exceptionally useful to send a drone up and down the fall first to record whether there are flies present — before a researcher risks life and limb by climbing down the fall only to discover that nobody is home.

From the Bishop Museum we traveled inland, past the University of Hawaii at Manoa campus into the Manoa Valley, a deep cul-de-sac surrounded by steep volcanic ridges. From the trailhead we worked our way up the muddy and rocky trail towards the falls. This is a popular destination, and many people simply want to put their legs into the cool pool at the foot of the fall. As is our wont, we searched for organisms along the way and came up with a nice little list of birds — and a frog! Upon our return, we were rewarded with a stunning rainbow over the Manoa Valley.

The trail to Manoa Falls — the well-maintained section.

View of Manoa Falls from the splash zone, where we found a frog.

An individual of the Japanese wrinkled frog (Glandirana rugosa), seen along the edge of the pool below Manoa Falls.

Field photography is, in and of itself, an adventure. The contortionist in this photo is Kaitlin Rickerl, whose well-perceived goal to photograph the frog on a backdrop that included a small cascade led to this position. She succeeded.

A subadult individual white-rumped shama (Copsychus malabaricus). This was but one of the species we saw today. Others included red-crested cardinals (Paroaria coronata), red-vented bulbuls (Pycnonotus cafer), common mynas (Acridotheres tristis), and even a salmon-crested cockatoo (Cacatua goffini). Photo courtesy of Jose Huerta.  

At the end of our hike, we were rewarded with a rainbow over the Manoa Valley. Just as we liked Hawaii, perhaps Hawaii liked us back. Mahalo!

Tomorrow, June 29th, we are traveling from Honolulu to Majuro in the Marshall Islands. Our flight, United Airlines 154 is the only island-hopper flight that connects the various islands in Micronesia. There is no other airline that does so, and no other way to get around! As a consequence of the needs of the Micronesian islanders, the flight is usually weight restricted to accommodate extra cargo and shorter than normal runways. It will also be an interesting experience for most of the team members, as we will be crossing the International Date Line. June 29 will be the shortest day of most of our lives: we leave Honolulu at 7.25 am on June 29th and arrive Majuro ca. 5 h later, at 10.30 am on June 30th. More about that in our next blog!