Grateful for the wind

The weather has been wierd for the last couple of days, like the wind switch is stuck between ‘Trades,’ and ‘Kona.’ Aside from plenty of vog succeeded by plenty of rain, this just kind of makes everybody uneasy.

So it’s nice to see somebody enjoying the weather. As I was leaving campus on my way downtown today, I saw an `io looping gracefully on a thermal just across Lanikaula St. Unfortunately, by the time I parked and got the camera out, it had soared a few hundred yards farther away and I couldn’t get a picture.

A while ago, somebody told me about a nesting pair near Kukahau`ula, the Institute for Astronomy headquarters building. I wonder if this was one of those birds, though I have also seen a pair up by the hospital. I wonder how big the `io population on the island is?