Most of Hawai’i’s kolea will take flight the last week of April bound for their breeding grounds in Alaska.
I saw this female on a hotel lawn next to Hilo Bay early in April. She was the least wary kolea I have ever encountered. While I sat watching her and admiring her breeding feathers, she hunted for bugs just a few feet away from me.
Last year I wrote an essay about these amazing birds with a little of my family history mixed in. You can read it here–Alaska Migrations.
My Sources
Hawai’i’s Birds by the Hawai’i Audubon Society, Seventh Edition, 2020.
Hawai’i’s Kolea: The Amazing Transpacific Life of the Pacific Golden-Plover by Oscar W. Johnson and Susan Scott, 2016.