First Field Day

After collecting what materials and instruments we needed, we left this morning from the lab in our campus van we had checked out to visit the 7 plots located around the Manoa Watershed. In the party was Greg, my professor, Dash, the graduate student who was leaving, Victor, the graduate student who was taking over the project, and myself. We drove through campus and back up into the Manoa Valley to the parking lot of Lyon Arboretum, our base for the first to hikes of the day. After meeting the main caretaker of the arboretum, Ray, We headed up the main trail into the forest. This was the most tropical forest I have ever been in. It made me think that I had been transported to some prehistoric jungle, all except for the many tourist and power lines seen along the way. After a ways we turned off the main path and crossed a small stream and found the first site, fittingly named the Lyon Arboretum site. The site consisted of two 10m by 5m plots side by side, one fenced in and the other not. In these plots were through-fall runoff collectors, 10 ft by 4 ft areas sectioned off by plastic siding shoved into the drown, with a fashioned metal funnel directing the runoff into a 5 gallon bucket and 20 gallon overflow bucket. At the center and cardinal points of the site there were plastic containers set up used to measure the amount of rainfall in a storm event. We set to work, obtaining both a total suspended solids sample and an Enterococci sample, measuring the amount of runoff collected by the buckets, emptying and cleaning the buckets, and measuring the amount of rainfall in the collectors. The purpose of this trip was to familiarize Victor and I to the sites, the process of collecting all the data and samples, and how to activate the sites. We also wanted to activate all of the sites for the next rain event. After all that was done we headed back down the trail to our next trail head for the Manoa Falls plot. After hiking up another breathtaking trail, exiting the path, crossing a stream, and finding the site, I was sent back down to the car to retrieve a few metal posts to repair some damages to the fencing, while the others activated the site. We made it to one more site before we took our lunch break; the Pu’u Pia site. After having lunch we headed to the other side of the valley to visit three, the Manoa Cliffs site, the Pauoa Flats site, and a third site we only had the opportunity to stop at briefly and the name is slipping my mind. These sites were at a much higher elevation and our hike took us through all kinds of plant environments; Bamboo forests, guava plant groves, native plant populations, and many invasive exotic plant populations. We ran into a fenced in enclosure where they were implementing pig exclusion to attempt at restoration of native understory. After visiting the first two sites we came down to our van and to our surprise the window had been smashed in, and there was glass everywhere. To our even greater surprise, the only thing missing from the car was a roasted chicken I had bought myself for dinner, how strange and funny too. We had to wait for a police man to come and file a report, so that set us back. We made a stop at the final site in that area and headed back to campus. It was a interesting first day out in the field. I learned a lot about the project and data and sample collection. I also learned a lot about the island and plant life of Oahu and the mountain range of the Manoa watershed. I look forward to going the sites we didn’t make it to, but for now my legs are spent and I am looking forward to doing some exploring over the weekend.