Kahanahaiki with OANRP

Over the past few months I've been volunteering with the Oahu Army Natural Resource Program.  This past Saturday we took an excursion out to Kahanahaiki on the West side of Oahu. The program takes up to ten volunteers on every trip and usually the spots are filled immediately when the sign up is posted.  The reason it gets filled so quickly is because of the opportunities to see rare native flora and fauna.  They teach you about the plants so that next time you would be able to identify them else where. They also point out hot spots on where you might find some cool bugs that are found no where else in the world. 

We all met at the baseyard and piled into two trucks.  We made our way to the north west side and up a windy road near Peacock Flats camping area.  As we hiked into our work site we collected seeds from the ko'oko'olau plants.  These seeds are easy to spread and they grow pretty quickly once they are in the ground.  On our way in we saw lots of ohia in bloom.  Also the snails were moving around since we got a couple of showers on our hike in.  It was cool to see achitinella out of their shells grazing around on some leaves.  As we neared the work site we did some trail maintenance and hacked at some branches that were encroaching on the trail.  At the work site we pulled lots of weeds around the area as Kim and Jamie set us up with herbicide.  But before we started to really weed, with herbicide and handsaws we took a break for lunch.  During lunch I spotted an 'amakihi.  Unfortunately didn't have my camera ready to snap a few pics.  I decided to walk around a bit and see what the other volunteers did up there.  It looked like lots of native plants were filling in where others had weeded.  After lunch we got down to business and weeded for about two hours.  I encountered tons of strawberry guava and christmas berry trees.  Cutting them was a breeze but having a whole forest of them took the energy out of me.  After weeding for two hours looking back at how much progress we made, made me feel pretty good.  I saw that I had to cut around a bunch of natives and there was more space for them to grow.  Hopefully spreading the ko'oko'olau will shade out the invasive plants and let the native plants flourish. 

The group took a different route back to the cars.  We made our way down a gully to check out some rare cyanea superba.  We were lucky to see the rare plants budding.  If only we were a week later we would have been lucky to see them in bloom.  Maybe next time.  Back at the cars we enjoyed refreshments provided by Roy.  Thanks for another great outing Kim! 

The trail to Kahanahaiki. 

Cat collected some seeds.

These are what the seeds look like. 

We hiked further in.

Jamie spotted a snail hiding in the leaves. 

Katie spotted this one grazing under a leaf. 

Here is Cathy pulling some weeds out of the ground. 

Steve started a pile. 

Can you guess what I was standing under? 

The leaf litter is a little different than other places. 

Katie spotted some similar plants we saw on another hike.  Awikiwiki.

After working for a few hours we were treated to seeing cyanea superba in the budding stage. 

Close up.

Katie talking with Jamie about plants. 

I admired the cyanea longiflora.

And the Makua Daisy.

The buds of a cyanea grimesiana.

Thanks to the Oahu Army Natural Resource Program the rare native species that once thrived in the mountains can have a fighting chance for survival.  In the case of the cyanea superba they found only four or five individuals and from there they were able to bring the population back into the hundreds.  Something that possibly our kids could see and appreciate in the future.