koleacount

Kōlea flying past Lalo (French Frigate Shoals) May 5, 2026. ©Martha Brown on her way to Kamole (Laysan) by boat.

May 15, 2026

Knowing that Hawaiʻi’s kōlea fly to Alaska the end of April or early May is one thing. Going there with them is another. After my attendance last week at two of Alaska’s shorebird festivals, one in Homer’s Kachemak Bay and the other in Cordova’s Copper River Delta, I came home with a new appreciation of all migratory shorebirds.

Lora Haller, Visitor Center Manager, Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, Homer, Alaska. ©Susan Scott

Executive Director, Keith Swindle, at our table in Cordova. ©Susan Scott

I have always been a fan, but watching those little birds run, peck, and cuddle up together in those remote tidal flats, knowing they just flew thousands of miles in who-knows-what-weather, well, it was hard to believe they were even here.

Western Sandpiper (mostly) flock in Mud Bay, Homer Spit Road. ©Susan Scott

Western Sandpiper flock video1

Western Sandpiper flock video2

Western Sandpipers shot with iPhone through a spotting scope. ©Nancy Brusseau

My trip was a cold, wet, windy dose of Alaska reality, particularly hard after my lifelong tropical island residence. I consider any temperature below 80 degrees a chilly day.

Hawaii resident (me) enjoying Alaska. ©Keith Swindle

I migrated to the festivals via Alaska Airlines with fellow shorebird admirers who, being tougher than me, stood outside in nasty weather to look at the birds through spotting scopes. My eye-watering, chapped lip, shivery experience kept me mostly in the car with windshield wipers going and  heater on full blast. Some Alaskans, however, were outside in shorts.

Wipers on.

Wipers off.

Most of the birds we saw were Western Sandpipers, flying and foraging by the thousands. A smattering of other shorebirds, such as Dunlins, Oyster Catchers, Bar-tailed Godwits and several others caused even me to get out of the car (but briefly.)

Hartney Bay, a prime birding site in Cordova. ©Susan Scott

The species featured this year at the Kachemak Festival was the American Golden Plover, a close cousin in our kōlea. One person reported seeing one kōlea in the area. I saw neither species. The absence of Pacific Golden Plovers here didn’t surprise us. Thanks to Wally Johnson’s decades of tracking research, we know Hawaii’s kōlea breed mostly in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta (YKD) and the Alaska Peninsula (AP.)

American Golden Plover male in breeding plumage. (White stripe short.) © Ian K. Barker via Cornell Lab of Ornithology, …

Midway Atoll, April, 2025. © USFWS volunteer Dan Rapp

(Note: I wrote the kolea news post below on Saturday but it didn’t send correctly to all subscribers. Trying again today, May 1st, with this update: The five kolea I was watching were gone April 28th. One Kailua plover lover reports that her bird, named Ruth, was still in her yard April 30th.)

April 25, 2026

Some kolea watchers who’ve been missing their backyard kōlea since mid April are wondering if the birds left for Alaska early this year. The short answer is probably not. If the birds arrive in their breeding grounds when snow still covers the ground, they could starve.

But when a plover we’ve watched all winter disappears on, say, April 12th, where did it go?

It’s a good question. We know that come April, the birds start gathering in large or small numbers in Hawaiʻi’s fields and grasslands. Over the last few years, we’ve seen groups of 50 or 60 plovers from mid-to-late April forging and resting together in grassy expanses of Ford Island and around Tripler Army Medical Center.

Not this year. Kolea fan, Roger Kobayashi, (retired with military access) has been monitoring the areas and hasn’t seen the usual gatherings. On Thursday, Roger kindly drove three of us to those locations. We saw only 11 birds at Tripler and a few scattered widely on Ford Island. (Roger’s update today: Zero at Tripler, 18 on Ford Island)

The 10 birds we saw at the Tripler Army Medical Center lawn on April 24, 2026. ©Roger Kobayashi

One lone male kōlea stood near some heavy equipment at Tripler Army Medical Center on April 24th. ©Roger Kobayashi

But the kōlea I follow (our Jake in particular, and others in Kailua Beach Park) are still in their usual winter sites as of this writing. So where did the missing birds go?

“We may never figure this out,” said plover expert Wally Johnson when I called him with the question. Without tracking devices on the birds, we don’t know where they go, where individuals in a flock come from, or when they leave for their Arctic breeding grounds. When a single plover or flock flies away, the birds may be relocating somewhere else in Hawaiʻi. Or not. The liftoff could be the Big One, meaning north to Alaska.

Researchers believe that the trigger to migrate comes from a biological clock in each bird’s brain that tracks the length of light, or photoperiod, of each day. Light change causes the production of hormones responsible for molting, weight gain, breeding behavior, and the urge to take flight.

It’s possible that stormy weather, such as our recent Kona winds and flooding, affects departures, but that’s just a guess. Migratory birds are mostly on autopilot, driven by chemical messengers that evolved to give them the best chance of survival.

Some birds are more adaptable than others. One …

Midway Atoll, April, 2025. © USFWS volunteer Dan Rapp

April 25, 2026

Some kolea watchers who’ve been missing their backyard kōlea since mid April are wondering if the birds left for Alaska early this year. The short answer is probably not. If the birds arrive in their breeding grounds when snow still covers the ground, they could starve.

But when a plover we’ve watched all winter disappears on, say, April 12th, where did it go?

It’s a good question. We know that come April, the birds start gathering in large or small numbers in Hawaiʻi’s fields and grasslands. Over the last few years, we’ve seen groups of 50 or 60 plovers from mid-to-late April forging and resting together in grassy expanses of Ford Island and around Tripler Army Medical Center.

Not this year. Kolea fan, Roger Kobayashi, (retired with military access) has been monitoring the areas and hasn’t seen the usual gatherings. On Thursday, Roger kindly drove three of us to those locations. We saw only 11 birds at Tripler and a few scattered widely on Ford Island. (Roger’s update today: Zero at Tripler, 18 on Ford Island)

The 10 birds we saw at the Tripler Army Medical Center lawn on April 24, 2026. ©Roger Kobayashi

One lone male kōlea stood near some heavy equipment at Tripler Army Medical Center on April 24th. ©Roger Kobayashi

But the kōlea I follow (our Jake in particular, and others in Kailua Beach Park) are still in their usual winter sites as of this writing. So where did the missing birds go?

“We may never figure this out,” said plover expert Wally Johnson when I called him with the question. Without tracking devices on the birds, we don’t know where they go, where individuals in a flock come from, or when they leave for their Arctic breeding grounds. When a single plover or flock flies away, the birds may be relocating somewhere else in Hawaiʻi. Or not. The liftoff could be the Big One, meaning north to Alaska.

Researchers believe that the trigger to migrate comes from a biological clock in each bird’s brain that tracks the length of light, or photoperiod, of each day. Light change causes the production of hormones responsible for molting, weight gain, breeding behavior, and the urge to take flight.

It’s possible that stormy weather, such as our recent Kona winds and flooding, affects departures, but that’s just a guess. Migratory birds are mostly on autopilot, driven by chemical messengers that evolved to give them the best chance of survival.

Some birds are more adaptable than others. One lucky Kailua resident has one kōlea, named Ernie, in the front yard, and one in the backyard, named Bert. Ernie is human-shy. Not Bert, though.  Bert comes to the lanai first thing in the morning for the mealworms the homeowners offer. Recently, the bird walked through the …

A kolea on one leg, a typical resting position. ©Matthew Olson, Queen’s Beach, February 25, 2026. From a shared Facebook post.

March 5, 2026

A newcomer to Hawaii once told me that a friendly bird had been in her backyard all winter but come spring another bird took its place. She wondered if the new bird had chased the former one away.  After she described the behaviors and colors of the individuals, I was sure it was the same bird. The woman’s visitor was a male kolea changing into his spring breeding colors.

That’s happening all over the state right now. The increasing length of daylight at winter’s end causes hormone changes in the birds, triggering molting. New feathers begin growing in late January and appearing in February (photos above and below).

This molting bird is resting, taking a break from foraging. February 28, 2026 ©Diane Trenhaile (also from a Facebook post.)

Kolea makeovers continue throughout March and April. The change in feather colors is dramatic, but so too is the birds’ shape. Our thinnest kōlea only about 4 ounces. At their heaviest, the birds are nearly double that or about 7 ounces, the extra fat essential in sustaining the birds during the upcoming migration.

Our yard kolea, Jake, grows so fat by April, that I imagine him even taller. His legs don’t lengthen, of course, but when Jake’s all decked out in his spring tuxedo and he’s strutting around the lawn, he looks like Wonder Bird.

Jake Wonder Bird (at least 9 years old.) April 12, 2025 ©Susan Scott

Jake from our living room. ©Susan Scott

Speaking of strutting, here’s a hilarious (and spot-on) plover observation that I will remember forever when I’m watching a kolea forage: “Based on our field observations, plovers may be stuck in some kind of mentally handicapped purgatory. They seem to run for a second, then stop and look around. While paused, they go into an existential spiral. What is this?…. Where am I?….Who am I?… What is?… And just as they start to get somewhere, they snap out of it and start running again.”

The quote is from Field Guide of All the Birds We Found in One Year in the United States , the book resulting from the YouTube phenomenon Listers, A Glimpse into Extreme Birdwatching by Quentin and Owen Reiser.  The brothers’ “early onset birdwatching” experiences in the film and book are fun, funny, and impressive works of art.

Thank you all for counting, caring, and keeping a sense of humor about the marvelous little dinosaur descendants we call birds.

Not amused by the Mid-Pacific Country Club’s Turkey Trot, the golf course’s 80 or so kolea took to neighbor’s rooftops until the invading humans left. ©Susan Scott

November 29, 2025

When Wally Johnson and I launched Kōlea Count in January 2020, we had two unknowns. First, we were oblivious that a pandemic would soon coop us up in our houses. Second, we didn’t know if Hawaiʻi residents would be willing to join a statewide plover counting program.

Those two unknowns merged into a happy result. Covid cabin fever helped motivate plover lovers to get outside, walk the neighborhoods, and count kolea. It was so pleasant in so many ways that year after year people have continued signing up, counting, and reporting. As a result, I’m delighted to announce the Hawaiʻi Audubon Society’s fifth annual Kōlea Count starting Monday, December 1st.

See the Count site list link (below) for current counting sites. Email me your choice in the CONTACT tab.  (Only I can make the X in taken.)  See GUIDELINES tab to count. T-shirts help fund the research: Hawaii Audubon Society/shop

Count site list

The 2025-2026 kolea season has already gotten off to a great start. Since July 4th, when Pam O’Brien-Gongora reported the first kolea return in a Mililani skate park, plover watchers have made 556 entries regarding arrivals of 1,682 birds. Some of those reports are the same birds, but that’s okay. Part of our motivation for creating Kōlea Count was to encourage people to notice, appreciate, and enjoy these amazing native birds.  

And that’s happening. When Kailua’s Mid-Pacific Country Club sponsored a Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot fundraiser for the Hawaiʻi Food Bank, they put a kōlea on the event T-shirts. Before the start, General Manager, Ron Haas, gave a short kōlea talk, reminding everyone of our birds’ extraordinary feats of flying. 

Another happy occasion with Kōlea Count is that Rich Downs, a professional data analyst, as well as Oahu’s manu o Kū expert, is working with our accumulating kōlea facts and figures. By combining eBird observations with Kolea Count numbers, and noting Hawaiʻi’s golf courses (green flags), we’re learning the precise locations of our birds statewide.

Rich’s work, combined with our September 6th Welcome Home Kolea party at Magic Island, the annual Nome Kolea Quest (info at events@hiaudubon.org) and the Anchorage Museum’s planned future exhibit about plovers connecting Hawaiʻi and Alaska, well, we’re rich in plover appreciation.

Everyone loves hugs from our mascot, Kōlea Nui (at the Welcome Home Kōlea celebration.)  ©Susan Scott

Kōlea dad with chicks, Nome. ©Wally Johnson

The hat I wore on …

August 9

As of this writing, 160 plover fans reported 265 kolea returned to Hawaii. Most people entered sightings in the REPORT tab on this site, but some emailed me through the CONTACT tab to share a picture.

Below is one of my favorites. On August 8, Carolyn Alameida took this shot through a Pupukea fence on Oʻahu’s North Shore. Although it’s not the clearest of photos, I love the enthusiasm in it. Carolyn saw this bird in a neighbor’s yard, remembered that someone wanted plover pictures, and came home to find this site. “I love the koleas,” she wrote. “Jill [Carolyn’s name for the bird] is at the house on the corner. I will look for her each day when I go walking.”

Carolyn calls this bird Jill.  

Another photo of a returnee that Suzan Harada sent to Sigrid Southworth who sent it to me. Suzan works at the Palehua baseyard on Tuesdays and photographed this bird on the hose August 5, 2025.

Other plover fans emailed to ask a question, the most common being, “Isn’t this [July and early August] early for kōlea returns?”

Well, no. This is the start of our fifth year of Hawaiʻi Audubon’s Kōlea Count project, and thanks to participants, we’re learning things. One is that late July and early August is normal for the birds’ arrivals here. This year, the first kōlea sighting was July 4^th in Mililani. A total of 71 returned birds were reported on this site in July.

In other kōlea doings, join us, and spread the word, about the Hawaiʻi Audubon Society’s annual Welcome Home Kolea Festival on September 6th from 10 AM to 2 PM at Magic Island, Ala Moana Beach Park.

Several partners will join us including the Hawaiʻi folks who make sparkling hop water in the cute kōlea cans. This nonalcoholic bubbly, available at Foodland, is considerably more expensive than other sparkling waters but the cans are worth it. I also like “Aloha in Every Bubble,” plus the beverage is locally made. The company’s explanation of the drink is here: Kōlea hop water.

You can help us afford to throw parties for these special birds, as well as carry on with Kōlea Count, by joining us as a member of the Hawaiʻi Audubon Society.

Thank you for emailing me notes through the contact tab to share photos or ask questions. We’re for the birds.

More kolea news coming soon. Stay tuned.

Chu-WEET,

Susan

Day-old kōlea chicks, Nome, Alaska.  © O.W. Johnson photo.

July 5, 2025

As of June 30^th, we completed our 5^th season of Kolea Count , a Hawaiʻi Audubon Society project. Thank you for entering your observations, and in that, helping us learn more about these much-loved native birds. The popular citizen science project continues, the new 2025-2026 season starting July 1st.

Because we so miss our perky prancing shorebirds after they leave, spotting the first kōlea return of summer is exciting. Plover fan, Pam O’Brien-Gongora, gets a gold star for reporting the first kōlea sighting near Mililani’s inline skate park on July 4^th.

Through Kōlea Count reports, we know that plovers returning this early is fairly common. In July, 2024, plover lovers recorded 58 kōlea on Oahu and Hawaii Island. Several sightings were small flocks on golf courses. Others were singles or pairs reported as looking skinny and tired.

As they should. Flying three-thousand miles nonstop in three-to-four days is an amazing and exhausting feat.

© Graphic by O.W. Johnson

Only the birds know why they come back to Hawaiʻi this early. Plover expert Wally Johnson says that July returnees either failed to raise chicks and gave up. Or the opposite. The birds had an excellent breeding season where chicks hatched, thrived and fledged in good time, allowing the parents to go home early. (I think of Hawaii as the kōlea’s home since they spend 9 months of the year here.)

Three kōlea eggs in a Nome tundra nest June , 2025.  Kōlea usually lay four. (Don’t see them?  Look below.) ©Susan Scott

As long as food supplies last, the summer’s chicks stay in Alaska, fattening up on bugs and berries for their great leap south. How these youngsters know where to go on their first migration is one of nature’s mysteries.

Nome residents call these nonbiting insects midges but some of us know them as gnats. Tundra insects provide chicks with ample food for fast growth. ©Susan Scott

If all goes well, this kōlea chick’s little wings will be flying in about one month. ©  O.W. Johnson

It’s a perilous journey for adults as well as chicks, making the plovers’ arrival deserving of celebration. Hawaiʻi Audubon has got that covered. We’ve planned our second annual Welcome Home Kōlea Festival for Saturday, September 6^th at Magic Island. Mark your calendars. The site reservation is confirmed. We will send reminders and times as the event grows closer.

Kōlea Nui and two young fans at the “Welcome Home Kolea Festival” last year at Magic Island. ©Susan Scott

Please report arrival dates from now …

Kōlea on rear-view mirror. ©Tiana Burdick

February 11, 2025

The kōlea season is going strong. Our birds are back, counters are counting, and plover lovers are sharing photos and stories that make my day. They’ll make your day too, as will the following results from your reports.

Thanks to Dr. Wendy Kuntz, biology professor at Kapiʻolani Community College and Hawaiʻi Audubon board member, we can see summaries of this season’s (2024) arrival data.

Most kōlea watchers reported seeing their first returnees in August.

From the Big Island: Our neighborhood kolea “Kula” was first spotted August 5, 2024 ~ 1:40pm. She arrived August 6th in 2022 & 2023. We’re happy, relieved, grateful she made it home! We’re enjoying Kula’s return…

A few birds arrived in July, either adults that failed to raise chicks or experienced adults that have this breeding thing down pat and fledged chicks early. Adult females usually return first.

From Kailua: Lady returned this morning, July 24, 2024.  This completes her 10th full cycle with us. Interestingly, she returned in August the first 4 years but has since been returning in the latter third of July. Her July return dates have been remarkably consistent.  Go, Lady.  Hoping her offspring are equally successful.

A September arrival, Oahu North Shore. Because kōlea begin dropping their breeding feathers (molting) while still sitting on eggs in Alaska, it’s impossible to tell males from females when the birds arrive in Hawaiʻi.  Some are mottled. This one is already wearing its winter outfit. ©Laura Zoller

Other kōlea watchers recorded birds arriving in their yards or parks as late as November. These are probably the summer’s chicks, which stay in Alaska as long as the weather is fair and bugs and berries are abundant. We should give these late comers a warm welcome. They gained enough weight to make the flight, survived Arctic predators, and successfully navigated to Hawaiʻi on their own.  Bravo, kids.

This parent is guarding its newly-hatched chicks. Migratory shorebirds have so many obstacles to overcome it’s a miracle of nature that any survive at all. ©Wally Johnson

This Citizen Science project is in its fourth year with some of us counting year after year, and others joining the fun for the first time. There’s no wrong way to count kōlea. All data, including zero, is useful. Rich Downs, another Hawaiʻi Audubon board member (and Hui Manu o Kū leader) is compiling KōleaCount data with eBird data to see where our birds spend winters, and in what concentrations.  Results are pending at season’s end.

But besides numbers, locations, and dates, KōleaCount adds joy to counters lives. I know this from my own experience and from the notes and photos participants add with their observations.

Here are a few:

Some kōlea are extra friendly. From Mililani: This bird loves our son’s (new place, just moving) backyard! Isn’t very afraid …

Count me in. please. ©Tom Fake

November 22, 2024

December 1st starts this winter’s annual kolea count. On this site’s contact tab, please tell me where you want to count and I’ll sign you up. I created these counting sites from maps but you can count anywhere you live, work, or walk. I enjoy driving to new places to count kōlea. It gives me mini-outings on my own island.

This kōlea seems to be leading a parade of ʻakekeke, or ruddy turnstones. The species often forage together. Puʻuiki Cemetery in Waialua is one of the places I count. ©Susan Scott

Although our plovers have been arriving in Hawaiʻi since August, we start the count in December to give the summer’s offspring time to get settled and get counted.

Chicks hatched on the Alaska tundra in late June/early July forage for insects and berries there as long as weather permits, sometimes as late as November. When the snows fall, the kids head south. Alone. How kōlea and other migratory shorebirds find Hawaiʻi, or any other Pacific Islands, is one of nature’s miracles.

A newly hatched kōlea chick in Alaska. Legs are adult-sized at hatching.  ©Wally Johnson

Shorebird parents don’t feed their chicks but follow the youngsters as they forage. Parents sit on their chicks to warm them when weather turns stormy. ©Wally Johnson

Not all offspring survive the journey, and some that do run into trouble when they land in a territory established by an adult. Young birds that find their own space, and make it through the winter are hardy survivors. E komo mai, kids.

When this young plover (left) trespassed on another’s patch, the established owner put up a fight. The squabble occurred in Punchbowl Cemetery. The newcomer moved on. (First year birds have no breeding colors.) ©Susan Scott

You can’t do this wrong. Besides helping gather data about the birds, counting kōlea gives us special moments to appreciate the marvel we call kōlea.