I listen for its musical caw but
am, alas, 'alalā-less
AFTER SEVERAL MILES OF
BOOT-SUCKING MUD and tangled, moss-covered roots, I reach the end of the trail.
I'm drenched with sweat and soaked from brushing against the overhanging fronds
of giant hāpu'u tree ferns, heavy with raindrops from the steady drizzle in the
Big Island's Pu'u Maka'ala Natural Area Reserve.
It seems like a lot of work just
to see some crows. Especially when I'm not even certain that any 'alalā are in
this preserve. The rare Hawaiian crow is, in fact, technically extinct in the
wild.
I'm no birder—no life list or
fancy scopes for me. But during annual trips to the Big Island—typically split
between beach time on the sunny Kohala coast and a few days sequestered in the
misty, 4,000-foot-elevation cloud forests outside Hawaii Volcanoes National
Park—I'd become intrigued by the birds. I first encountered them at the Volcano
Art Center, a gallery for Hawaiian art in the national park. Among the koa wood
bowls and fine art photos of lava flows were numerous paintings and wood-block
prints of crows.
And the sound: hissing, tumbling
boulders, a low moan straight from the guts of the earth.
Why? The 'alalā, I learned, is
not your ordinary, french-fry-scavenging crow. Endemic to the Big Island, it's
one of the world's rarest birds, the last survivor of the five species of
corvids that once lived in Hawaii. Many artists portray them because of their
role as spiritual guardians in Hawaiian culture.
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