We didn't have any participants scheduled for today, so besides needing to go to the properties to pick up the flying insect traps, we had the day off! We decided to take advantage of this opportunity and drive around Mauna Kea on a 4WD only road. The guidebook we read (Hawaii Revealed) suggested the road took about 4 hours, but it ended up taking us 7.5, including a 1+ hour diversion. The road was difficult in places, but the views were great. We had clouds for the first leg of the journey blocking the view, but otherwise we had perfect views. We could even see Maui and Haleakala at a few points on the journey. The Kohala mountains were also visible as we ascended the mountain.
Along the way we saw some cool birds and even saw a few silversword plants as well. This was a special treat, as these plants take 20 years to flower, then, after they do, they die. They have really shallow root systems, and prefer higher elevations. We saw them in Maui last year as well, at Haleakala, but they are actively trying to protect them there, as opposed to where we saw them. We also saw blacksand, Hawaiian raspberries (which are great because they evolved to lose the thorns common in raspberries), the sunset, and lots of rough road.
The drive was long, scary at times, but we both agreed it's worthwhile to take once, and hopefully the clouds cooperate. We finished the journey around 7 p.m. so we didn't have time to head up on the paved observatory road, but plan to do that in the future.
We got back quite late, since we also had to pick up sticky traps from the previous properties. We decided to have a bonfire on the lava beach and roast some brats and s'mores. The fresh salad with all local veggies was an added bonus to an already yummy dinner. It gets fairly windy here at night, but Seth built up a nice rock wall to shield the fire.
Our first participant today was at 11 a.m., but this was at the northern community of Honokaa, so we allotted about 1 3/4 hours driving time. It ended up taking a little over 1.5 hours. Our car was still quite dusty from the drive yesterday (even with the rain overnight) and I had some minor whiplash from the rough roads.
Our first participant was from Ohio originally, but his wife was from Hawaii. They don't hear the frogs where they are, though they used to hear it in Keaau, which is closer to where we are staying. It sounded to me like the man's hearing may have helped him NOT to hear the frogs, so I guess that is to his advantage.
Our next participant was scheduled for 3:30 p.m. so we had some downtime between properties. We ended up driving to the Honokaa Park/gym area and sat and did some reading. It is really windy on this part of the island, and quite a bit cooler, so we sat in the car for reading.
Our second participant worked at the local transfer station (dump) and indicated that the frogs are only really heard in that area, but he doesn't like them, and doesn't want them to move into his property. We chatted with him more when we came to set up the sound recorder and he seemed interested in my research. He was asked by the county to record the calls of the frog near the transfer station for a week, and then the county sprayed citric acid. He said that the number of frogs definitely decreased after the spray, but the frogs are still there.
We drove around near the transfer station and through the town, listening for frogs. We heard them by the transfer station and in a few other places in the community, but it is mostly silent! Wow, that is so different than all the other places we have been thus far and it really helps you appreciate just how quiet the nights are here sans frogs (even though there are crickets..). We stopped by a place that is supposed to have the best malsadas on the island, but I think we've been spoiled by Baker Tom's. We sampled the Bavarian cream and chocolate cream, but they just weren't as spectacular as Tom's. We also had a lilikoi smoothy, which was tasty, though the small size left something to be desired for the price.
We made a grand entrance at the first participant's home when we went to pick up the recorder around 8:30 p.m.- the car alarm decided to go off when we tried unlocking ourselves to open the door. Way to be stealth! At the other property, it was hard to tell if the owner was drunk, tired, or both, but he still seemed genuinely interested in chatting about the frogs. He had previously offered us some beer, but we politely declined.
The drive back was long, but we made it, and will be doing it again tomorrow night, and hopefully the night after. I'll be trying to recruit a few more participants in the community tomorrow. Hopefully we'll be successful.
Our first participant was scheduled for 11 a.m. and was quite chatty. I almost lost track of time as our next appointment was scheduled for 1 p.m. This participant had heard a frog the other night across the way, but didn't have any in her yard- yet! Though she did have wild turkeys, that Seth took some pictures of.
We rushed to finish data collection and headed down the road to the next participant. This next participant had told me on Saturday that we could come by anytime, since she's retired, though we still scheduled a time to come by. She didn't seem to recognize us at all, then said she was leaving for a doctor appointment in a few minutes. THEN she tells us she's just renting, so we'll want to talk to the owner, next door, but the owner is handicapped, so we'll want to talk to her son, who lives in the next house down, but doesn't get off of work until 6 or 6:30 p.m. Well... this was just a little frustrating. We decided to head to the library in town and I read the local news while Seth looked up some books he wanted.
We needed to pick up the sticky traps from the other day, so we took care of that, and then we decided to go for a walk down the main street. We walked past a fudge shop and decided to try the lilikoi fudge and dark chocolate macadamia nut. The lilikoi was awesome!!
We went to the park to eat our fudge and do some reading, before heading off to try and recruit more participants. We watched a water truck fill up from the fire hydrant, and we wondered if we could wash the dust off our car from the Mauna Kea drive without busting the windows. The park was pretty busy, so we decided now was not the time to find out.
We talked to a few people over near the transfer station. We recruited one participant for Saturday morning, but the other people we spoke with were the adult children of owners who didn't speak english, or the wife of a husband who wouldn't be interested. We drove on, and came across a house with a woman outside raking. She was busy Saturday, but was ready now, so we jumped on it, and got to business. She was a spunky woman with 5 sons who knew quite a bit about the frog and other things on the island, including the rows and rows of Eucalyptus trees we saw on the drive that were apparently planted with the hopes of putting up a mill, but the mill never happened... She brought us out ice-cold apple juice, and then also had one of her sons deliver us dinner before we headed back to the first property to set up the sound recorders. The hotdog was bright red, which I guess is a different (more natural) kind of dye. We were also treated to mac and cheese and peas. She said it was too bad we didn't come on beef stew night, but I told her we're grad students, so this is just great. She was super friendly and went over and above with helping us out.
We went back to the first property, and heard that there were only frogs across the way, and none in the yard. The woman offered us an assortment of beverages, but we just sat and chatted for an hour and a half about all sorts of things. She was a person that was very easy to chat with, so time flew by. We headed back to the second participant's property, and, again, didn't hear any frogs on the property, and barely in the distance at the dump, so we packed up our gear and headed off. It was quite a fun and friendly evening.
We didn't have any participants scheduled for today, so besides picking up sticky traps, our day was open. We decided to head north and west of here to Waipio valley, since we'd be going past where we needed to pick up the sticky traps. The views were gorgeous of the valley and the ocean. We walked along the black sand beach, and both of us decided to have some fun playing in the ocean. You forget how salty the ocean is if you haven't played in it for a while! The waterfall near the beach was also quite pretty.
The dirt road extended further into the valley for more waterfall viewing, but despite the roads having water on them, and beside them from taro runoff, the waterfalls were dry, so we headed back up to the overlook to eat our dinner
It was funny listening to the load of people that pulled in next to us, as they were all celebrating their success at surviving the drive, when both Seth and I were wondering if the need for 4WD was even that necessary. Needless to say, the drive was a piece of cake for us, and nowhere near as steep as we expected, but anything probably seems easy after driving around Mauna Kea!
We stopped by Kalopa state park on our drive back to the apartment, and are thinking of camping there this coming week when we are sampling in the northern communities, rather than making the 1.5 hour drive back and forth. We'll see if this makes sense or not. The park was gorgeous, and we'd love to go back and explore the forests for a hike or two as well.
We made some s'mores when we got back, had some volcano wine, and stretched and exercised while watching a series on Air force one from the Modern Marvels series.
Today our participant was back in Orchidland estates. This was the individual who had seen us sampling a person down the road from his house, and was interested in participating as well. We had already interviewed him, but needed to take the daytime measures and do the nighttime measures as well. The property was 3 acres and was mostly unmanaged. It took us about 3 hours to take our samples, after we waited for some of the rain to pass through. We got covered in fern fuzz again, and are thinking it will be a long night. At least it is closer to the apartment so the drive back isn't so bad.
It was raining when we got there, so we sat in the car for an hour or so before getting started. The property took about 3 hours once we finally got started. We had time to come back to the apartment and eat a late lunch/ early dinner.
Compared to the community we had just been at, this property was quite loud again! Seth saw an orange shaded coqui, but didn't have the camera to take a picture. I saw a walking stick, which was also pretty cool. We used our human machete skills to maneuver through the thick brush, and both smelled of ferns pretty strongly when we were done. The property took about 3 hours at night as well, so not terrible. We had forgotten to put up a couple of the sticky insect traps, so we decide to head back to this property after we've gone to our northern community the next day.
Our first appointment was scheduled for 11 a.m. in the northern community. I wanted to head to the market first, so we left early and stopped by the Hilo market. I'm on the hunt for a white pineapple, but one of the vendors I spoke with said her white pineapples aren't quite ripe yet. They are supposed to be super sweet, which is hard to imagine since the yellow ones here are really sweet compared to what I'm used to. The market is a happening place to be on Saturday mornings and the produce always looks amazing. Too bad I didn't have more time to shop around, but I still got more onions, bananas, cigar mangoes, and a yellow pineapple. Seth treated himself to a homemade doughnut, which was pretty good.
We arrived a few minutes late at our first participant, but she wasn't there anyways, so we just left a "sorry we missed you note, please call to reschedule". This woman was sketchy to begin with, as she asked me several times when we recruited her if it cost any money to participate. We drove around and tried to recruit more people to participate, but encountered many older folks or people that didn't speak english, so we didn't have much luck. We stopped at the Honokaa park to eat our lunch and read for a bit, as one person told us to come back around 2, and another said to come back around 3.
The 2 p.m. person still wasn't home (we talked to the son), so we drove around trying to recruit more. We recruited one lady for Monday, but still needed 2 more. We ended up at one man's house who was extremely chatty, and we did his property right away. He talked for an hour and a half (or so), and got way off on a tangent about the presidential race, the history of Hawaii, racial tensions, religion, polygamy, and the Green Bay Packers (apparently he was a big fan of Vince Lombardi, so he's been a cheesehead ever since, though he's from HI). I finally managed to escape and helped Seth collect our landscape data. By now it was close to 4:30 p.m., so we drove back to the 3:00 people, but the dad was napping.
We decided to try recruiting on a road we hadn't been yet, which is near to where some of the coqui frogs are in the neighborhood. We scheduled a pretty tripped out looking guy for tomorrow. He seemed amused at the world, but was able to tell me that there are frogs in the area and they sprayed the gulch area recently. Hopefully he'll be there tomorrow. He said he works at the restaurant we went to have dinner. It's the same place we had the mediocre malsadas and small lilikoi smoothie. Seth wanted to try their shrimp burger, and I had a veggie burger. The food was fine, and we washed it down with some ice cream we got at the local grocery store, which we ate at the park overlooking the ocean.
We set up the sound recorder at our participant*s house, and then headed for a drive to our next community- Waimea, to listen for frogs. The drive there was quite eerie, as we were driving through a cloud, and there were trees lining the road. The community is larger than any we have been in thus far, and we spent a while driving around listening for frogs. It was quite windy, so it was hard to hear, and it was also cool. We didn't hear any frogs, so we decided to go to the grocery store to pick up a few items and ask the clerks if they knew where the frogs were. Talking to the locals worked in Honokaa, as a few people said there were no frogs in the are, but then a few told us there were frogs, and knew where they were. I guess you just need to find the right people, which might be harder in a larger community, since even less will live near the frogs. The clerk had only lived here a few months, so she wasn't any help (but she was from Michigan, and had spent some time in Wisconsin), but we talked to a couple other people (none of which actually lived in the community) who stated the frogs are not here.
We decided to head back to pick up the sound recorder and would look at our map back at the apartment for areas that we hadn't driven that might be suspect. It's good to have participants without frogs, but I need to be sure there actually are frogs somewhere in the community as well.
We picked up the recorder, told the participant we'd be back to get the sticky trap tomorrow, and headed back towards our apartment. We needed to stop by and pick up the sticky traps from the property the prior day, so we headed there first. Of course, since it was later at night (around 11 p.m.) it was raining. It seems to do this like clockwork every night on this part of the island. It's a nice calm rain, but is a little cool, and not the most fun to be running around in the tall grass to pick up sticky traps. We managed to get soaked, but dried off once we got back to our apartment.
Our first participant is at 3:30 p.m. today in the northern community (assuming he shows up). We're going to try and do some recruiting in Waimea for the rest of the week as well. It seems like this should be so easy, but the recruiting portion of our work is probably the most frustrating and difficult. It's really rewarding once we do connect with a participant who agrees to schedule a time, but then you worry in the back of your mind that they won't actually be there when they say they will, and then you're back at square one again. It's always something new, and always different, so it keeps us on our toes.
We left a little later than I was hoping, but I was getting work done at the apartment, along with packing for the day. We drove up to Waimea and had gorgeous views of Mauna Kea from the road as the clouds were lifted. We had about an hour and 45 minutes to recruit 7 participants from randomly picked streets across town. We only had one person say no- a major record from all other communities we've sampled!! I met lots of interesting people who wanted to sit and chat immediately, but I had to cut them off as we needed to head back to Honokaa for our participant that was actually scheduled for the day. One older gentleman still talked for close to half an hour about coqui frogs, problems with mainlanders, invasive species in general, and his ancestors from Puerto Rico. I think he'll be interesting to talk to, but I'm sure we'll be there a number of hours, so I scheduled him in the afternoon so we don't have to worry about rushing to another participant. People were extremely friendly in this area. Only one of the people I talked to mentioned that the frogs had been right across the way from her house, and are still down in the gulch area, but the rest said there aren't any coqui frogs yet. One potential participant sat and discussed all the areas around his house and where there are reservoirs and native forest that hadn't been replaced with African grass for ranching (Waimea is ranchland- home of Parker Ranch). I was in the best spirits I have been on recruiting day. Of course, there's still the chance one of them won't show up on their scheduled day, but it looks like it might be easy to recruit extras if that's the case.
We drove to our participant back in Honokaa. We were a few minutes late. He didn't answer the door for a number of minutes, but then finally came out- phew. We thought we had another person skipping out on their appointment. This man was a bit odd, but part of that comes from how he spoke. He's from Holland originally, so we think that's part of it, but he also had an interesting demeanor about him. Before we even talked about the coqui, he jumped into a discussion about global warming, politics, and consumption. Seth was in the car, and he said when he thought we were done interviewing, he realized I was saying "okay, the first question is..." so he knew it was going to be a long interview. The person owned a restaurant up the road that he is now trying to sell. He bought the restaurant a number of years ago, improved it from what it was, but now is tired of the long hours and feels it would be better owned by a family and with someone who has money to put in an initial investment to take it to the next level. His house was nicely manicured, and he thought there was one frog on the property. He knows a guy who comes and sprays hydrated lime in the gulch near his home, and who holds update meetings at his restaurant every week. It sounds like it's hard to get people in the community involved with the effort, since the frogs aren't directly affecting that many people yet. We had a nice long chat and then Seth and I went to the park to eat our dinner and wait for it to get darker.
We didn't hear or see any frogs on his property, but we did hear one next door in the bromeliads. He had lots of bromeliads that looked like they would be a nice habitat for the frogs, since they hold water in this drier area of the island. We walked around the block while we waited for the sound recorder to finish recording, and we noticed that the frogs we'd heard the other night were more intermittent as well. It was hard to say if it was cooler or less humid in the area this night than several nights prior, but we feel that's likely the case, which would mean less frogs calling. Hard to say for certain without more data.