What if I told you that an endangered Hawaiian bird can be easily seen from a station of the new rail system? One doesn’t usually associate rare fauna with urban areas, but that is exactly the case by the Kalauao station of the Honolulu Skyline; it’s right in front of Pearl Ridge Mall. And what seems like an odd occurrence now may be a guidepost to a healthier ecological future.

I may have mentioned before about some interesting paradoxes in the conservation of Hawaiian biota. How some of the rarest taxa are also strangely some of the easiest to see. It is the case with dry forest plants, as many former native dry forests have become prime real estate for urban development. Remnant populations of rare plants can sometimes be found shockingly close to urban development. Wetlands are no different in Hawai`i. Wetlands and mud flats can be a common habitat in many low elevation and strand sites in Hawai`i close to where people live. They are especially developed on the older islands of Kaua`i and O`ahu. These habitats are some of the first to come into contact to the expanding human footprint. They can abut human development and best and be covered over at worst. Here again one can get the juxaposition of native habitat and human development side by side.

Now the Sumida Watercress farm is not a native habitat. Watercress was brought in for agriculture sometime in the last 200 years. There were a number of lo`i kalo, watercress, and ong choy farming in the Pu`uloa area that were formerly native wetlands. Many have since been paved and developed over with the Sumida Watercress farm being one of the last in the area. It leads to the striking visual above, with aquaculture right next to a major throughfare and now train line.

Not the greatest picture, but amongst the ubiquitous cattle egrets is an elegant black and white bird with long pinks legs. That is the rare Hawaiian Stilt of Ae`o (Himantopus mexicanus ssp. knudseni). They may only be a total of 1,000 to 2,000 birds. But if you took the bus or train by Pearl Ridge Mall on a regular basis, you would probably see stilts often enough that you don’t think much of their presence. The reliability of the sightings can mask their endangered plight. It also shows the adaptability of fauna if conditions are favorable. Most native wetland birds do not seem to be affect much by the diseases ravaging our forest endemics. And the watercress farm does a reasonable job approximating their original habitat.

The fact that an endangered waterbird can opportunistically take advantage of a novel environment is a glimmer of hope in otherwise difficult conditions for native wildlife. It opens up possibilities previously unthinkable: Can our native biota coexist with the modern world? What are we willing to do to make that happen?

Considering how challenging the dynamics around public discourse is now, that willingness seems like the most insurmountable obstacle. But what gives me courage to speak up is that relationship I have with deep time or, at the very least, my ability to see a path to the future. This area of O`ahu with a small segment of rail and a watercress farm masquerading as native waterbird habitat is not much on it’s own. But it does offer a pretty clear glimpse into a better future and a potential path to get there. Am I talking about the train or the birds? Well, that’s up to you dear reader.

I remember hearing a graduation commencement speech once that said “dream impossible dreams, for you never know how close you’ll get.” I don’t lament that my impossible dream is seeing an `o`o bird in pristine native forests; I don’t have a path to get there. But I do want to see how close I can get to that vision. Thriving, expanding native places. I’ll gladly take seeing Ae`o from the Honolulu Skyline any day of the week.