JANUARY 2022

HAPPY 2022!

We started the year doing what we do much of the time when we are together...walking and birding.

This is a Lewis's Woodpecker, really a pretty pink and green bird that is rare to our area, but that we found with some help.

This is the crabapple tree outside our window decorated with Lesser Goldfinches!

This is a Black-throated Sparrow which is also rare to our area.  Yes, we go hunting for the rare birds on occasion.  It really was quite lovely.

This is us on our way to Kauai early January.

We had a companion fare to take advantage of and decided this would be a good location.

(Shrubbery at a Farmer's Market we went to)

We stayed up on the north shore of Kauai in Princeville.  This was close to the Kilauea Lighthouse with this beautiful bay!  We spotted several really interesting water birds in this area.

Here is a close up of the lighthouse...really pretty!

Here is the White-tailed Tropic Bird we saw near the lighthouse.  We also saw a couple with Red Tails.

This is a Red-footed Booby.  The feet really are red and the beak is blue.  There were tons all around this lighthouse bay. 

This was a Laysan Albatross...it was HUGE!

And, while we were there, we also saw some whales spouting out in the ocean and caught this tail flip!

We got ourselves into some pretty serious hikes.

Our first one we found as we drove through the Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge.  This hike was longer and much more muddy than expected, but set the tone for all the rest of the hikes we went on while there.

So many roots to trip over and so slippery in many spots!  Such steep climbing in parts, but really lovely views at the top and good exercise!

After our hikes, we treated ourselves to local Hawaiian Shave Ice.

Some of the local birds were really just so cute like this Red-crested Cardinal.

And the flowers were just stunning.  Lots of variety in color and shape.  Yes, orchids were common.

We took snorkel gear and went to a beach on the south side of the island where it is more calm during the winter.  Poipu Beach.

My gear worked better than Scott's.  He kept getting water in his mask.  We did get to see about 10 variety of pretty salt water fish just in the shallows walking around and putting our faces into the water.

This Monk Seal was beached and sleeping in the area...roped off to protect it.

On the beach at Poipu.

We took a shuttle to the Haena State Park on North shore the next day and did an incredible long and strenuous hike.

This shot makes it look like a piece of cake...

But all the warning signs tell a different tale.

Not that we were worried about flash floods, but the trails were steep and muddy in many parts and we did have to ford some streams over big rocks and...did I mention that I forgot our water bottle on the counter of our rental?

Some of the rocky terrain.

The reward at the end of our 2 mile along the coast hike and then 2 mile inland hike to the waterfalls hike.  It was stunning!  But we were exhausted!

And, we still had to hike the 4 miles over really tough terrain to get back!

This is Scott at the beach at the 2 miles back to the coast point dipping his head into a pool of water just to cool off!

We were blessed to find an abandoned water bottle at this point which really saved us so we could get back to the shuttle stop and some fresh WATER!

You guessed it, we treated ourselves to some SHAVE ICE as a reward!

It was an 8 hour ordeal in a beautiful place, but very tricky.  We will most likely not do that hike again, it was very difficult.

We started finding places to be when it was either sunrise or sunset.  This was sunrise the next day on our way to Waimea Canyon.

Waimea Canyon is called the "Grand Canyon of Hawaii."

It was really deep with a river at the bottom and similar in some ways.

There were some long and strenuous hikes available this day but we opted not to hike.  We just really enjoyed the views and did some bird hunting.

Java Sparrows outside our rental.

Yet another incredible sunset.

The White-tailed Shama

Back at the lighthouse, the Black Frigatebird...really a cool one with a split tail.

Speaking of birds...there are wild CHICKENS all over the place!  You can tell they are wild if they have gray legs.  

We were not very happy with the one near our rental that decided 4:30 AM was a good time to crow each morning.  Hmmm.  Chicken dinner anyone?

We did one more long and really crazy strenuous hike on Saturday.  We thought it was shorter than it was, but it was long and took us up rock walls to the top of Sleeping Giant.

Sunday we attended Church in a lovely Hawaiian style meetinghouse with open air type doors all along the sides.  

Scott in one of the masks from the rental we stayed in.

Sunday we drove to a couple more waterfalls like this one.

And found this cool spouting horn that we watched for a while...

...and then stayed and just watched the final sunset there on the beach.  It was stormy and beautiful!

Back in Utah, we got to work...Scott worked at birding with Aaron to see this Pygmy Owl up at Little Dell Reservoir and I worked at house hunting with Bree and Elliot each Saturday with Jennifer!

We were delighted to see that eBird used a couple of our photos from last year in ads for upcoming events.

This features photos Scott took of Austin, Brooklyn, Evan and me in Provo last fall and one of Klay (in green coat) when we visited them last fall. 

Pretty cool!!

Aaron told us where to find this Virginia Rail, an elusive little water bird.  We were delighted to see not just one, but 3 of them on our outing to Lehi.

I took my preschool classes to BYU to the Museum of Paleontology and the Bean Life Science Museum the last day of the month.

And Scott finished up the month with a YSA home evening with some minute to win-it games like Oreo wrangling...where you start with an Oreo on your forehead and wiggle it to your mouth.  Well, his never made it to his forehead but that is par for the course!