The joys of living on a National Park

A view of the summit and its powerful plume from the trail. It is hard to tell where the plume ends and the overlying clouds begin.

The volunteer house is only a stone's throw away from a flurry of trails leading around and inside the Kilauea volcano caldera. The summit of Kilauea is located in the northern edge of the park. Constantly emitting a gas plume, the summit can be seen in the photo above. The summit is situated within a much larger depression known as a caldera. Calderas are formed around volcano summits when the erupting magma originates from a shallow underground reservoir. When magma is spewed out, the overlying ground loses it's structural support and may collapse into a caldera. It is thought that Kilauea's current caldera was born out of numerous collapses between 500 to 200 years ago.

I followed a trail along the upper rim of the caldera. Besides witnessing dozens of breathtaking views of the summit, I got a peak into Hawaii's diverse botany and bird wildlife. Lining the trail were young brown furry coiled ferns and older green ferns with large leaves. Sticking out from the green backdrop are red pua lehua flowers or 'ohi'a blossoms. This soft spikey flower is the official flower of the Big Island and can be seen is full bloom all across the park.

Younger coiled ferns in the foreground and larger mature ferns in the back.

Almost the same rouge color as the delicate fibery red pua lehua flowers are the Apapane birds or Honeycreepers who congregate around the red flowering trees. Additionally, I saw a few grey Mourning doves and yellow and grey Hutton's vireos. I still have yet to spot a Nene, the state bird.

Vibrant red pua lehua flowers.

Unfortunately I don't have any bird photos to share. Those coy winged creatures always flew away right as I was about to photograph them. Learning the art of bird photography is next on my list of things to do...