From Spouting Horn to Fog Horn: An Exploration of Kauai from Coast to Coast

Spouting Horn is a natural formation of lava tubes that forces water to explode out of its natural pipelines. It also kind of sounds like a whale when it shoots water out (it also kind of looks like a whale spouting). This place has become quite a tourist attraction in Kauai and is close to a beach with good snorkeling and a reef on the south shore. It is also very frequented by Red Jungle Fowl (aka Moa). This place also has the possibility to see sea turtles (we saw two of them). It also has some side caverns that shoot out water like dragons attacking a castle (no sandcastles here). My favorite time to come here was at sunset, because of the incredible views and awesome orange colors.

Kilauea Lighthouse was the best place to bird watch on the north shore because the lighthouse, the cliffs, and the peninsula around it were crawling with birds. The coolest bird that we saw there was the Laysan Albatross. Laysan Albatross are less known than their cousin, the Wandering Albatross, but are still quite impressive. Their wingspan is enormous and they are incredibly graceful (in fact, the Wandering Albatross has the longest wingspan in the world). The Nēnē is an endangered Hawaiian goose, but it seems to be making quite a comeback, although they need to get a little bit smarter to stay out of the roads on the way to the lighthouse. Their babies also looked quite a bit like walking grey cotton balls. One of the more challenging birds to photograph was the skittish, often moving, red crested cardinal. I only managed to get a photo of one when we stopped on the side of the road and one was sitting close to the road (although I had to use full zoom on my camera so that I did not scare it away). Another very interesting bird that we saw was the White-tailed Tropicbird. They have quite striking black and grey wing bars on the topside of their wings. That isn’t even the coolest thing about them; I think that the coolest thing about them is the incredibly thin, delicate, and beautiful white tail streamers. another bird that we saw was the Wedge-tailed Shearwater that nested in borrows around the lighthouse (you could quite often find this bird underfoot creating just another reason to fence off the area around the lighthouse (so that you don’t step on it))! Great Frigatebirds have well earned their nickname “The Pirate Bird” by stealing fish from other birds in the air.

To find out more about the birds of Kilauea Lighthouse click: https://www.fws.gov/refuge/kilauea_point/wildlife_and_habitat/birds.html

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