Waimea Botanicals...

This post comes from Waimea again.  Last post it was all about the waterfall, but this time it's about the flowers and the Hawaiian Moorhen.  The Waimea Valley has a lot of great flowers along the walk to and from the waterfall.  Along the way I was looking for the Hawaiian Moorhen too.

The Hawaiian Moorhen is a rare Hawaiian bird, but Waimea is a sanctuary for them.  They are cute little birds that have a red forhead and upper beak.  This bird, called 'Alae 'Ula in Hawaiian, was featured in their folklore about fire.  Apparently the Hawaiian Moorhen held the secret of fire.  A demi-god, Miui, asked for the secret from one of the great Moorhens, but the Moorhen lied about how to obtain fire.  When Miui realized the great Moorhen had lied, he choked the Moorhen until he was finally told the secret.  As a punishment for lying, Miui burnt the foreheads of the 'Alae 'Ula with red hot stick, forever giving them this feature.

Be prepared for a million pictures of flowers, but there are a couple bird pictures hidden in here too.  Mahalo for visiting.

Bird of Paradise Flower.  These are my favorite flower here.  

It's like they explode out of their covering.

Who you looking at Ms. Peacock?

My first sighting of the Hawaiian Moorhen!  All the ones I saw were tagged.  I'm assuming its because they keep track of their population numbers.  Many of the Hawaiian birds are on the endangered species list, so they are often monitored by the scientists.

This leaf is slightly larger than my torso.

Second sighting: found this Hawaiian Moorhen hiding in the grass.

One of my favorite pictures in this post.  I have no idea what kind of flower this is, 

but it looks like it is sticking it's flower-like-tongue out.

This picture wins as my favorite.  I barely found these little guys.  The flower is really only the size of maybe a quarter, but rich in color and fascinating how it hands down too.