Muggy Weather

It was so muggy during my mid-morning walk; fortunately it was also somewhat overcast so it wasn't blazing hot. I saw Matthew at the bottom of Lurline; he had just pulled out of his driveway and was on his way up to Brad & Lisa's house to take Bo Derek for her walk. I also saw Leslie and Ipo twice, once up on the circle then later on Lurline; I met her when I was walking with Matthew the other day. I also saw that shrub with large yellowish-brown flowers; Iʻm still trying to figure out what it is.

Unknown flowering shrub.

By the way, I overslept this morning so I skipped the morning walk. I didn't notice that my Fitbit battery was low last night; it died overnight so the alarm didn't go off this morning. I woke up when I heard the security door shut when The Roommate Who Likes to Wash Dishes left for work. I walked in to Maunalani at about the same time as I usually do, Dad had finished eating; he had a couple bites of the solid food and drank about half the supplements.

Lunch today was Shepherd's pie, Seasoned broccoli florets, Tossed salad, Ambrosia, and Chicken & wild rice soup. Dad ate all of his peanut butter & jelly sandwich and half of his supplements.


I was checking my email and opened up the one from eBird, which is sent out by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. I am now contemplating doing their 2019 Checklist-a-day Challenge; I'll need something to keep me busy during my walks next year especially after the Great Aloha Run. I already know there are 19 species that use Maunalani Park, this checklist-a-day will be a little different. I would be logging the species & numbers of birds that I see during that walk. And I can submit more than 1 checklist a day, which would provide information on whether a species is seen in an area only during a certain time of the day.

The afternoon walk was also muggy; the broken cloud cover kept it cool enough that I wasn't too uncomfortable. I looked for birds as if I was doing the checklist-a-day challenge; I will have to do a bunch of checklists before the end of the year to get those 19 bird species set up in my eBird account to make it faster when I am actually counting birds while I walk. I am also thinking of setting up a couple other areas to do checklists on. One would be the lower parking lot which I can see while I am doing my cool down stretches; I saw a bird there today that I'm not sure of. Another would be off the Orchid Dining Room lanai for the days that Dad decides to sit out there with me. And I think I should also do the upper parking lot which is the only place that I have seen the Northern Cardinal.


Here's the list of the 19 birds I've seen at Maunalani Park; only 1 is native. This list is presented in the taxonomic sequence of The Check-list of North American Birds (7th edition through the 58th supplement, 2017), published by the American Ornithological Society. The  codes following the scientific name represent the distribution and population status of the species in Hawai'i. "(En) = Endemic - a species either entirely confined to the Hawaiian Islands in its natural distribution, or a species whose breeding range is entirely confined to the Hawaiian Islands. ... (I) = Introduced - established solely as result of human intervention. ... LC = least concern. ... VU = vulnerable" In some places I have added the local ethnic name for the species.
Spotted dove, Spilopelia chinensis (I) LC
Zebra dove, Geopelia striata (I) LC
Pacific golden plover, Pluvialis fulva LC (aka kolea)
Cattle egret, Bubulcus ibis (I) LC
Rose-ringed Parakeet, Psittacula krameri (I) LC
Red-vented bulbul, Pycnonotus cafer (I) LC
Red-whiskered bulbul Pycnonotus jocosus (I) LC
Japanese white-eye, Zosterops japonicus (I) LC (aka mejiro)
White-rumped shama, Copsychus malabaricus (I) LC
Common myna, Acridotheres tristis (I) LC
Common waxbill, Estrilda astrild (I) LC
Java sparrow, Padda oryzivora (I) VU (I'm guessing it is vulnerable in its home range, but not in Hawai'i.)
Scaly-breasted Munia Lonchura punctulata (I) LC
House sparrow, Passer domesticus (I) LC
House finch, Haemorhous mexicanus (I) LC
Yellow-fronted canary, Crithagra mozambica (I) LC
Northern cardinal, Cardinalis cardinalis (I) LC
Red-crested cardinal, Paroaria coronata (I) LC
Saffron finch, Sicalis flaveola (I) LC

It feels strange not to see Kristieʻs car in the parking lot when I walk through; she came in about the same time I did but stayed a couple hours later than I did.

For most of the late afternoon Chibi was back out in the cat run, escaping from Sʻmores; she came in after dark. And Sʻmores was running around the house getting in to trouble.

Do you ever find yourself yelling at the TV? I did that this afternoon; I was watching Jeopardy! while cleaning up the kitchen. The answer was something along the lines of, "It has 2 protons and is the 2nd lightest element." Iʻm yelling, "Helium!" each time as the contestants are guessing Oxygen, Nitrogen, and Hydrogen. And they were definitely guessing since I had the right answer! Auwe!