A rainy birthday zoo visit

Just south of Hilo lies the Panaʻewa Rainforest Zoo & Gardens. It's the only zoo in the United States located in a rainforest, it's free to enter, and in over a dozen years of living in Hilo I…have never visited. Recently there have been discussions about needing to start requiring an entrance fee, and now that I pass by it several times a week for my new job I decided to fix that oversight and visit for my birthday.

Despite the fact that it was pouring down rain today. Actually, even in spite of the rain I still had a fun time. I went with my friend Josh who had visited multiple times before but hadn't been in over a decade, and he was able to point out some of the changes and improvements. I managed to take some surprisingly good photos despite the rain, so have a few of them:

A bumblebee poison dart frog in its enclosure.

It's not a very large zoo – it took us perhaps a bit under two hours to see everything – but I found that rather nice; I've visited much larger zoos that took all day to see everything, and it does get a little exhausting after a while. This was a refreshingly ‘bite-sized’ zoo.

A red iguana chilling in the rain. Despite appearances, it was awake and watching me.

And it's not like it lacked for interesting animals, either. I'm only showing the better photos I managed to get, but it's got a neat selection of reptiles and amphibians, including several species of poison dart frogs and various chelonians. There are four native Hawaiian birds, the pueo (owl), ʻio (hawk), ʻalalā (crow) and nēnē (goose), multiple primates and a number of brightly-colored tropical birds, some peafowl who roam the park, tigers, emus, and even some binturongs and an alligator. 

A pueo, the native Hawaiian owl.

All in all it was a fun excursion, and with how close and easy to visit it is I'm a bit embarrassed I never visited sooner. I'm actually quite impressed with how well some of the photos I got with my Pixel 9 Pro came out despite the rain (and me juggling an umbrella in one hand), and I'm interested in coming back on a clearer day to spend some more time and see what else I can get.

A couple of emus in the rain. I knew better than to get my phone (and fingers) up close to them…

And altogether that made for a fun and memorable 36th birthday. My birthday hasn't been on a weekend since 2020, and since I'm usually saving vacation time for trips it was nice to have a relaxing day off to myself this year. (Especially after spending a rather chillier and less pleasant rainy day in the field earlier this week.) A hui hou!

A new job with NEON

It's been four weeks since I started my new job with NEON, the National Ecological Observatory Network (managed by Battelle), long enough for me to start settling in and having a chance to catch my breath. There's been a lot to learn. The past few weeks have been a blur of trainings on various data-collection protocols, learning to identifying dozens of plant species, and a procession of trips to various pre-established plots in the rainforest for data collection. (Plus a little bit of lab work.)

Being up at altitude near dawn for mosquito collection is rough, but the dewy grass is incredible.

NEON's mission is to provide a decades-long collection of ecological data from a network of locations across the US, so the various protocols are designed to get that data in a standardized format from diverse locations. There are twenty ‘domains’ across the US (of which we are Domain 20), which may have multiple sites where data is collected (though there's only one site in Hawaii). This data is open-source and available for anyone to use, a fact which fits my personal leanings very nicely. (Having an ORCiD already set up from my time in astronomy proved useful as we use them for attaching credit to data collection, so I may be able see data I've collected used and attributed in future papers.)

Some Astelia menziesiana (an endemic lilly) on a log.

Collecting such data isn't necessarily easy, though! In addition to the simple fact of the collections sites being located around 5,000–6,000 ft (~1,500–1,800 m) up the side of Mauna Loa, the nature of many protocols involves strict time sampling restrictions, which might require spending the day working in rain. (We're supposed to evacuate in thunderstorms, but those are rare near Hilo.) Even without rain spending 6+ hours in the field is no joke; some plots may have a lot of hard lava rock underfoot, while others (especially with feral pigs present) may be slippery mudholes. I've been amazed by the number of fallen logs in some of the older sections of the forest, which combined with the undergrowth can make getting around something of a challenge. We work four 10-hour days, and while the three-day weekend is nice there's no denying that working that long can be grueling, especially on field days.

Me recording data in a light drizzle.

Still, it's not without its upsides. While it can be uncomfortably hot, cold, or wet at times, at others it can be fairly pleasant. The work itself is interesting; while I had some experience identifying plants before, I'm learning all kinds of new, native plant species, and finding them for the plant diversity protocol is rather like a treasure hunt. Depending on the plot, we might find trees some 500 years old, or be exploring relatively younger lava flows from Mauna Loa perhaps a mere 250 years old. There's little human presence in the Natural Area Reserve where we work (although it's technically open for hiking), and the still-intact native forests house native birds which are rare elsewhere.

We often see nēnē at the site; I think I saw more my first day than in all my time here previously.

I've also found the labwork, though a far cry from anything I've done before, to be interesting. So far I've sorted leaf-litter from our leaf-litter traps, seeing how the distribution of species varies from plot to plot, and identified beetles from our beetle traps. The particular beetles we're interested in are called carabids, and while most species on the mainland are ground beetles, our native Hawaiian species are arboreal (though we still manage to catch them in our ground traps, somehow). There have actually been two entirely new species found in our traps in years past, which is certainly an exciting prospect.

Leaf litter sorting, into various piles for things like leaves, flower, seeds, twigs, etc.

After four weeks I'm not sure if this is something I want to continue doing indefinitely, but I've got a wonderful group of motivated, clever, and fun coworkers to work with and there are certainly fascinating aspects to the project and sights I wouldn't see otherwise. Perhaps I'll feel differently after a few more months. We'll see! A hui hou!

A Handel Easter hymn

Happy Easter, dear readers! A few weeks ago I accidentally introduced a hymn we sang in church today, Thine Is the Glory (or Thine Be the Glory, I've seen both titles). To explain, the music for the hymn comes from George Frederic Handel's oratorio Joshua, from a chorus titled “See, the conqu'ring hero comes!”. We've been going through the book of Joshua in Sunday School, and I'd been taking turns teaching while our regular teacher was away for a few weeks. I listened to Joshua (the oratorio) due to being reminded of it, remembered the hymn derived from it, and, since it's a resurrection song and Easter was a month away, introduced it to the class. Which reminded our music leader about it, causing him to pick it for Easter (despite it not being in our usual rotation). I felt like this was as good an excuse as any to digitally engrave some music, and whipped up the score below this afternoon for fun:

In the process I learned the difference between the Early Modern English verb forms ‘hast’ (second-person singular present indicative) and ‘hath’ (third-person singular present indicative) while checking lyrics, since some versions (incorrectly) used the latter instead of the former in the phrase “Thou o’er death hast won.”

There's an interesting history behind this tune, which you may see categorized in hymnals as “Judas Maccabeus”. You see, in 1746 Handel composed an oratorio titled Judas Maccabeus, which became one of his more popular oratorios. The next year in 1747 he composed Joshua, along with this tune. Joshua falls into what I would describe as “solidly average” for Handel; it's not bad by any means, and has its share of high points (I'm particularly fond of “A solemn March during the circumvection[sic] of the Ark of the Covenant”), but mostly didn't achieve the same popularity.

Except for this chorus, which is sometimes rated as Handel's second-most-famous chorus after the “Hallelujah” chorus from Messiah. Noting its popularity, Handel went back and added it into Judas Maccabeus (perhaps in 1751, it's generic enough in wording that it fits), and the combination took off. Then in 1884 the music was used by Swiss hymn writer Edmond Louis Budry as the basis for a new hymn, “À toi la gloire,” or Thine Is the Glory when translated into English.

And that's the story of how a tune composed for one oratorio got named after a different oratorio and ended up in a hymn. (It helps that it's a relatively simple chorus sung in unison without any polyphony, making it pretty easy to sing.) History is truly fascinating sometimes. A hui hou!

Relaxing waves in Hilo bay

I'm starting my new job tomorrow, so I may be a bit preoccupied with that for a while as I settle into a new routine. I know some generalities about what I'll be doing, but the particulars remain to be discovered. (Though I'm expecting to be rather sore and tired for the next week or so.) I'll probably get some posts out of it in the future, at least!

Earlier this week, though, I took the opportunity of some high-surf days to get some drone footage of waves crashing over the breakwater in the bay and turned it into this video:

The observant may remember I did a similar video last year. While that one was taken in overcast, almost stormy conditions, the high surf days this week were on gorgeous, mostly-clear days, which made for a nice contrast. Where I went with some fast-paced music with that video, this one got some calmer music, slower editing, and some nice relaxing wave sounds. Anyway, hope you enjoy it! A hui hou!

Ancient Indonesian architecture

All right, one last post from my Indonesia visit: while I was there, we visited a couple of historical stone structures, two candis and a stupa. All of them were several centuries old, dating from around the 13th to the 15th centuries. The first one was Candi Singhasari, a syncretic Hindu-Buddhist structure thought to be the funerary temple of King Kertanagara (d. 1292), the final king of the Singhasari dynasty. It's an interesting construction, and it's impressive that it's still standing after centuries of earthquakes with such a relatively tall and narrow design (though it looks like some of the top portion has been dislodged).

Candi Singhasari

There isn't really an interior, just some small chambers.

About 6 km north of it is Sumberawan, a Buddhist stupa thought to have been constructed near the end of the 14th century or early 15th. It's rather unique, as it's the only Buddhist monument in East Java to have been constructed in the stupa style found elsewhere in Asia (with the rounded top) rather than the local candi style. It's located in a lush garden near a spring which was probably used for various rituals, and ties into its name: sumber means “(water) spring” and awan means “noon” in Javanese.

Sumberawan

Finally, we visited Candi Jago, a Hindu temple from the 13th century. It was apparently described as “majestic” in the Nagarakretagama, a 14th century document in Old Javanese whose translation in the 20th century helped inspire the Indonesian independence movement. It's hard to make out in the photos, but it's ringed in multiple layers of fine bas-relief, which are still there all this time later.

Candi Jago

When I visited I assumed these structures were composed of basalt, but while looking them up for this post I've learned it's actually andesite. Still a volcanic rock, though it's a little lighter gray rather than the darker black of basalt. It holds up quite well given the heat, humidity, and tropical rainfall of the area, though. Anyway, I thought these were interesting enough to share (especially Candi Singhasari, I like it's design). A hui hou!

Visiting Museum Angkut

Another thing we did while I was visiting my parents in Indonesia (and probably the last worth a post) was to visit Museum Angkut. I was told beforehand that it was essentially a sort of car museum, with various models on display (and some other vehicles). Which isn't necessarily a bad definition, but as we discovered that's a bit like calling the Hawaiian archipelago “a little isolated.”

To begin with: yes, it has a lot of old or rare vehicles. It has cars from Model Ts up to these 70s models that look like they've been stretched out, up through I think a few from the late 80s. Though as the photo shows, it also had a number of other vehicles, including a few helicopters, various military vehicles, the Indonesian equivalent of Air Force One, wooden scale models of various Asian ship designs, and some older vehicles like carts and rickshaws.

Oh, and lots of different bikes, of both the human-powered and motorcycle varieties. Including this bizarre two-person bicycle which I couldn't get over. Those wheels are around my height, they're huge!

And if that was all the museum had, I would've thought it an hour well-spent and considered it a good museum; everything was laid out nicely, with informative placards, and it was genuinely interesting seeing how car designs had changed over the century since their introduction. But then, trying to find the exit, we discovered that we'd only seen maybe 20% of what there was to see…

Outside the building we'd been in up to that point, we found alternating indoor and outdoor areas, done up to look like various places and times to show off even more antique vehicles. The street in the photo below was meant to look like Hollywood in the first half of the 20th century, and yes, everything you see there is within the museum ground.

The locations on display were both quite varied, and often impressively done. There was an “old Batavia” street from the late 1800s, the aforementioned Hollywood street, a Europe zone (indoors) with locations from Italy, France, and Germany in the 20th century, an outdoor Buckingham Palace, a Las Vegas area, and another Hollywood area where they had a number of cars from various movies such Ghostbusters.

The Buckingham Palace area.

Complete with mysterious royal flying unicorn!

This took perhaps another two hours or so to get through, and was all quite fascinating. And then we discovered that there was yet another part of the museum, called the Floating Market! I'm not sure if it was actually floating, but it was a collection of various food-and-souvenir shops set up around and on some islands in a water feature (interspersed with yet more exhibits, such as a dedicated section on Indonesian military vehicles). I forgot to get any photos of this part because I was starting to get a little overwhelmed after seeing so much (plus the intermittent rain wasn't making our time spent outside much fun, and most of this part was). We finally found the way back to the parking lot, only to run into even more parts of the museum along the way, such as one of those theaters where you strap into a moving seat that gives you a feeling of motion as you watch a video.

I came away very impressed, and also rather exhausted from the sheer number of different cars and set locations I'd experienced. (Not to mention people, I've mostly managed to avoid them in the photos above but the museum was quite decently busy.) I've been to a few vehicle museums before like the train museum in Sacramento or (most recently) the Air and Space museum in Tucson, and Museum Angkut felt really well-done. I'd have been impressed simply with the range of vehicles and models in the first building, but the areas after that really sold it as being an attraction worth visiting if you're ever in Batu (on the island of Java).

Were I to visit again I'd like to go on clear day, as the nature of the museum going from indoors to outdoors and back again several times meant that I couldn't enjoy the outdoors portions as much when it was raining, though we visited during the rainy season so that's on us. I also wasn't prepared for the sheer amount of things to see, so it got a bit overwhelming when I kept coming upon new things long after I was mentally prepared to be done – I'd love to see it again with a better idea of how much there was to see, as it was all very interesting. Anyway, I can definitely recommend it! A hui hou!

Visiting Indonesian watefalls

While I was visiting my parents in Java we went to see some nearby waterfalls, and since we didn't get rained out this time I was able to get my drone in the air for some video. I actually didn't think to take too many photos as a result, but I got a few from my vantage point on the ground.

Coban Palangi.

The first one we visited was Coban Palangi; “coban” means waterfall, and “palangi” means waterfall (with the ‘c’ being pronounced like a ‘ch’). This was the tallest and most visually impressive one, as it plunged over the rim above and generated a lot of mist in the valley below. It was overcast when we visited, so we didn't get to see a rainbow. (And why the photo looks somewhat washed out.)

Here's a shot of Coban Palangi from above. It was the most open of the three waterfalls, allowing me more freedom to maneuver and get different angles. That openness also required the most hiking, down from the road above into the valley where it was.

Coban Toris.

The next day we visited two more waterfalls near each other, Coban Toris and Coban Tarzan. These were both smaller waterfalls tucked away under canopies of foliage, which made them feel a bit cozier and meant I had to get creative with the limited range of drone shots I could get.

Coban Tarzan.

But if you'd rather see these watery wonders in motion, check out the video below from the footage I was able to take:

One interesting thing I did notice while hiking (and flying my drone) in the Javan rainforest is that there seemed to be very few flowers visible from above the treetops. Not that every tree here in Hawaii has flowers, but we do have a lot of the invasive African tulip tree which always seem to have a lot of bright orange flowers visible from above. I haven't tried to quantify the difference, but it was something I noticed while looking out across the jungle canopy while hiking into and out of the valleys where the waterfalls were.

Not much more to say about this, other than that I'm glad the weather cooperated after getting rained out at the tea plantation tour. I like waterfalls, as I'm sure is pretty clear from this blog, so it was neat getting to see some in other contexts and locations. A hui hou!

Visiting a tea plantation

I spent the last week of January in Indonesia (specifically the isle of Java) visiting my parents, who are there for (at least) two years for work. I unfortunately came down with some nasty food poisoning near the end of the trip which laid me out for a few days, then was busy with Journey through the Universe after getting back (for the first time since all the way back in 2014 and 2015, though this year was just being part of a career panel rather than a classroom presentation since I didn't know when I signed up last year if I'd still be on-island in February). Thankfully things have finally settled down enough for me to write a few posts.

The first day I was in Indonesia, we visited Wonosari Tea Plantation on the slopes of the Arjuna volcano. It's nearly a thousand meters above sea level, which keeps the climate cool enough for the tea plants to survive; lower down the tropical climate would be too hot for them.

Photo taken during a downpour that rolled in while we were there.

Seeing the fields of tea plants was rather interesting. One thing that struck me about them was that they had other trees planted at regular intervals in them, as seen in the photo below. I don't recall all the reasons our guide mentioned as to why, but I remember they at least use wood from the trees as fuel, and they might have other uses too (like shade for the tea harvesters, or attracting pollinators or biological pest control, perhaps).

You can see the tea plants in the photo above, growing as roughly waist-height bushes. Something I learned from our guide is that tea plants, if left alone, are really tea trees, growing to some 20 feet high or more. (They left a few to grow naturally as a demonstration.) So in a sense, all the plants here are tea bonsai, which I found rather amusing.

Perhaps the reason they're so small is because they're constantly having the buds and new leaves nipped off for tea. The fountain statue above shows the all-important part of the plant which is harvested: the bud and no more than two leaves down. Those sprigs of tea go into a sorting and drying process which happens on site and which we got a tour of, but weren't allowed to take pictures of. It was an interesting process; the plantation is quite large, and while I don't remember the exact amounts I think they were shipping out hundreds of pounds (possibly tons) of tea every single day (since the tea can grow year-round, and they can just work their way around the fields giving each section time to regrow).

Anyway, it was a neat tour, and afterwards I was going to send my drone up and get some photos only for a tropical downpour to roll in (as seen in the top photo, which I actually took as we were leaving). I'm a little bummed about missing out on that since I think I would have gotten some amazing views, but I did get to use my drone later on so that's something to look forward to. I'm not sure how many posts I'll get out of this trip, but there should be another one or two coming at least. A hui hou!

Trying (and failing) to catch Kīlauea fountaining

My friend Graham and I have, twice this month, attempted to catch the current eruption of Kīlauea only for the fountaining happening in its caldera to take a break the night before we visited. (It's currently in a stage of fountaining and resting in haphazard alternating bursts.) Our first trip, fog came in at dusk so thickly that we couldn't even see any glow from the caldera, but at least we were able to see something on our second outing.

We also did some hiking, including the hike along Sulphur Banks. I hadn't done that one before and found it quite a nice walk. It's in this sort of valley near the caldera with trees on the sides but little vegetation other than grass in the middle due to the heat underground, giving it this sort of idyllic quality (as seen below).

It also has places where elemental sulfur (from hydrogen sulfide reacting with water) form crystalline deposits, which is pretty neat.

While hiking Devastation Trail, I also found this vantage point where you can see Maunakea from. It's a cool perspective, with Kīlauea in the foreground, Mauna Loa in the middle, and the peak of Maunakea in the distance. From left to right, I'm pretty sure the observatories that can be seen upon it are Subaru, Gemini, and CFHT (though you might have to enlarge the picture).

And finally, with night falling, we were able to make out the glow of fresh lava on the floor of Hale Maʻumaʻu. I'd read there were some new lava flows, but it was fascinating to see it up close (especially since I was only expecting to see a bit of localized glow from the cracks in the lava lake, which is on the far side of the crater).

Overall it was fun to visit the volcano again and try to catch the ongoing eruption, even if Kīlauea wasn't playing ball. I hiked a few trails I wasn't familiar with and found some new favorites (the Sulphur Banks trails was especially nifty), and it's always cool to be reminded of the sheer scale of (one of) our local hole(s) in the crust. I don't know if I'll try to catch the fountaining again given how unpredictable this eruption is being, but we'll see! A hui hou!

New year, new job

I began last year with a post explaining how I'd learned in December that my job at Gemini wasn't going to end up being extended beyond October, and that I didn't know where I'd be in a year. This year I find myself in a somewhat curious mirror to that situation, though in this case the good news is that I've accepted a job offer and it doesn't require moving.

Back in November I applied for a job with a company called Battelle, working with a program called the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), a set of observation sites scattered across the U.S. with the goal of providing a standardized, long-term, open-access database of ecological observations. In December I was contacted for an interview, and then got a job offer the next day. I dithered a bit, since it's a seasonal position running from April through November (when I'd rather have a more stable position), but since I hadn't heard back from any of the other astronomy jobs I'd applied to and it would allow me to stick around in Hilo for another year I ended up accepting.

It's rather different from anything I've previously done, so I'm not entirely sure what to expect, but from what I've learned it involves conducting observations generally having to do with biodiversity or population sampling (with roughly a 75/25 split of field work to lab work). The site here in Hawaii is located on the slopes of Mauna Loa (some 3,000–4,000 feet up, I was told), but with the access road close to Hilo, and I think the company's base facility is actually just across the road from the Gemini offices where I was working.

The irony that this is now the second time in the last decade that I've 

1. had a desk job in astronomy for about three years,
2. been let go because of funding issues,
3. taken a job on the slopes of Mauna Loa,
4. which lasted/will last for less than a year,

has not been lost on me. (Though I do hope it's not setting a pattern for the future!) Still, the job sounds interesting, and I think I'll enjoy it while I have it.

With the recent wildfires in Los Angeles county, I've also realized that I may have dodged a bullet; I had an interview with IPAC, the astronomy center at UCLA, back in August, and while nothing ultimately came of it there's an alternative timeline where I might have moved to L.A. around this time and been affected. (I've heard that several IPAC developers have lost houses to the fires, so…) I'd rather not move, but if I had gotten a job offer I'd probably have taken it, so it's probably for the best that that didn't go anywhere.

Anyway, as mentioned, the job doesn't start until April so I've got some months of downtime until then. I'm sure I'll have more to say about it once it starts, and maybe some more post ideas in the meantime. A hui hou!