August 8, 2011. The best way to describe Kauai's Kilauea Point is through pictures. It's on the very northern tip of the island and is home to the only national wildlife refuge on the island that is open to the public. On the day of our visit, the green, rocky point and inlet of crashing sea on its east side hosted dozens of red-footed boobies, wedge-tailed shearwaters, great frigatebirds, and red-tailed tropicbirds. Seeing these seabirds fly about in circling flocks was a treat in itself, but the real surprise was walking a trail lined with burrows where shearwater nestlings were seen tucked away, waiting for mom and dad to return from their daily fishing trip. We took the trail the Kilauea Lighthouse, which is in the process of being restored, and will be open to the public on its centennial birthday in 2013. Then we took in the views from different directions off the point, the Na Pali coast to the west, the monk seal island to the north (though no monk seals present today), and plenty of Pacific Ocean to the east.
We were also privileged to meet up with the now re-introduced NeNe, the Hawaiian goose that had once disappeared from the island and is now making a come-back. There are two other national wildlife refuges on Kauai, but humans are not allowed to enter them to see (disturb) the endangered species they support. A beautiful view of the Hanalei Valley from the roadside was enough for me, letting the drama between the endangered waterbirds and waterfowl and the introduced species play out in the wetlands below. We see plenty of coots, stilts, and ducks in California, so we drove on up the highway to leave the Hawaiian species follow their own road to recovery.
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| Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge |
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