Saving the nest from flooding

The hau at the edge of the swollen river

It’s been raining for two days and nights now, and red dirt is snaking into Hanalei bay from the swollen rivers. Overhead, the clouds drift in from the Pacific in thick layers and settle over the mountains. Thin, wispy, animalistic shapes are carried across the dark bases, slowly merging into solid masses. Thunder rumbles overhead and a young female nene looks up with her head on one side, and decides to move from beneath the coconut tree in the middle of the valley, where she had settled. She calls to her mate, a contact call with some urgency to it, and he follows her deeper into the valley, on foot. Normally they would have flown but all the geese prefer not to fly when it is wet or windy. The dominant male, from the nesting pair, has a new position on a silver-gray trunk of a fallen wili wili tree, where he has a view of the places on which the two other nene pairs have been focusing. He is about 100 feet from the nest, in “penguin form”. It’s a name I made up to describe the elongated stance a nene takes in heavy rain. The rain runs down their necks and bodies in rivulets, and they all seem to enjoy it. I never see them seek shelter like most other birds.
Underneath the hau it was sheltered and dark, but great quantities of the yellow blossom had been washed off the upper branches by the rain and scattered across the carpet of blackened leaves. The nest has been growing in size every day, getting wider, and taller as she has continued tucking more leaves around herself. She lay relaxed on top of it, wings merging into the down-and-leaf blanket, and on the edge, beside her wing, a perfect yellow hau flower rested, lotus like.

The following day……Saturday
The storm has continued overnight, the bridge into Hanalei is closed by water over the road, and the fields where people normally park for the two farmers' markets are lakes, with endangered koloa ducks splashing in them.
Lightning flashes, followed by thunder crashes a couple of seconds later, continued through the night into a very dark dawn. We didn’t get to see the full moon at all, the largest of the year, which was set to rise on the horizon at sunset last night.
By about 8.00am there was enough light to check on the nest. We could see from the window that the pasture was a network of lakes, and one of them disappeared beneath the hau beside the nest. It was bad. Standing water was everywhere, by instinctive choice her nest was one of the few patches still visible, but water was all around the edges and looked as if it was touching the eggs. She looked up at us, with no fear, no hiss, I don’t want to put my thoughts into what she was thinking, but she looked dejected and soggy. The ground around her, which had been solid last night, had changed within hours to a lake. It seemed hopeless, with hundreds of feet of standing water around, and rain still falling like a tropical monsoon. The best chance was to make it drain faster. Luckily Bill was back from the mainland, and while thunder continued overhead he began to dig a narrow trench from the river towards the main area where the water was gathering. At one point he had to saw through hau roots, four inches thick, only three feet away from the nest. Talking to her as he did it, he succeeded without spooking her. At last the water started to drain, an ooze that became a bubbling stream, draining just enough - as long as the river doesn’t rise. It took two and a half hours, partly because of the restricted spaces in which he was working; little cavities in a tangle of ancient hau. When we left her the nest now seemed to be about three inches above the water, and she began to preen, a good sign - she hadn’t been moving, she had been too still, a bundle of wet feathers.
The rain is forecast to continue until Thursday, we should get some sand bags ready.

Part of the drainage channel after it began to flow. One of the roots that had to be cut is near the center.

This whole area was under water, right up the walls of the nest, and in places even touching the nene - which you can see just above the center of this picture. The area clear of leaves shows how close to the nest the main drainage channel had to be dug.


After Storms, Cleanup In Kauai
Assessments Under Way As Area Seeks Federal Help

WAIMEA, Hawaii - Cleanup has begun in several counties after a severe storm pounded Kauai. The Civil Air Patrol conducted an aerial assessment of the island on Sunday to determine if Kauai will qualify for federal assistance.
A bulldozer worked alongside residents to clear the muddy mess in Waimea Town, one of the hardest hit areas on Kauai.
Raging flood waters washed away cars and disturbed piles of abandoned vehicles, which ended up on top of each other, in the mud, and in the river.
"The thing was 1 foot into my kitchen," said Kauai resident Glenn Kapahu. "It lifted up my deck. This is about the worst I've seen in this valley. And I've been here for over 20 years – 30 years."

From KITV, Hawaii Dec. 14 2008