Hail Storm and Honeycreepers on Haleakala Volcano

  Holy snow storm! On our last afternoon we decided to tackle the summit of the 10,023ft Haleakala volcano. Little did we know we were in for a wintry storm complete with lightning, thunder, and sleet.

   We could see that clouds engulfed the volcano from our sunny beach down in Wailea. But I know from experience that often the volcano summit will be high and dry out of the tops of the clouds. That was not going to be the case this time. Although once we passed the summit visitor center and started to climb the last 400ft to the top we noticed the rain had turned into hail. Looking around the tiny hail started collected on the lava rocks and in the road like snow. It was very hard to imagine that only two hours prior Heidi and I had been soaking up the warm tropical sun on Wailea beach.

  After running around a bit in my shorts and trying not to slip on the ice in my sandals I had all the photo proof of the very localized winter hail storm. So we jumped back in the dry warm rental car and drove back down to Hossmer's Grove nature trail. The rain had let up enough where I felt comfortable taking my camera on the short trail. I had hopes of finding the colorful scarlet honeycreeper but I wasn't sure how the small weather conditions would effect my chances.

  I was in luck. As I got closer to the gulch where the honeycreepers feed the rain started to let up more until it became a light mist. Songbirds lit up the airwaves with songs like it was sunrise. I played safari photographer with a few of the honeycreepers that came close. I always feel like if I had a few hours I could have one fly close enough to get that award winning shot. Until then these zoom images will have to do. I was pretty jazzed after my many sightings but the real thrill came a few thousand feet down the volcano. Heidi and I had stopped at an overlook to enjoy watching all the storms encircling Maui when we noticed a large bird flying towards us. Large birds are pretty rare here in Hawaii and my hopes were high for an owl, and it was! The Hawaiian short-eared owl is a subspecies of its continental cousin. It was only the third time I have ever seen one.

  As we stood high above the coast of Maui watching storms and owls I also noticed a couple more animals nearby. Free ranging cows still tread these slopes and looked at us as meddlesome trespassers. A beautiful all white butterfly also landed nearby which was a surprise considering we mostly see monarchs. So, even with torrential rain, hail, thunder, and freezing temperatures, Haleakala still managed to show off why it is such a magical place.