The koa’e kea (or white-tailed topic bird) lives on the cliff sides around Kilauea. Well, some of them do. Some of them lives elsewhere around the islands.

The koa’e kea flies down to the ocean to search for fish in the tossing waves. It is a strikingly beautiful bird, with bright white feathers set off by jet black ones. Plus, it has a long, narrow tail – the tail is longer than its body! It streams out behind it in flight.

This one koa’e kea was a serious kind of bird. He wanted to be certain to take care of things that were important. That meant, first of all, keeping himself properly fed, so he was often found scanning the sea for signs of fish or squid (sorry, calamari). He did not want his energy to flag because he’d skipped a meal.

He also paid a great deal of attention to making sure he had a proper nesting place. He looked carefully for the best place, where the nest would be safe from predators (or from accidentally falling down the cliff side).

He paid attention to other important things, too. He knew the importance of friends. So he joined in the conversations and the controversies, and he was always there with a joke.

(I’m afraid I’ve never been able to properly appreciate the humor of the koa’e kea. It mostly sounds like “SQUAWK!” to me.)

He found himself puzzled by his friends, however. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, everybody would take off and start to circle around Kilauea’s summit. They’d dip and dive, and climb and soar. They weren’t hunting anything (food was four thousand feet below in the ocean), they weren’t telling jokes (since every conversation went something like, “SQUAWK!” “What did you say?”), and they certainly weren’t tending nests.

It was all rather baffling.

Worse, he seemed to be the only one who didn’t understand it. His friends did it, but so did their parents. So did their parents’ friends. So did his parents. Everybody, from time to time, would just soar about the volcano.

Everybody except him.

He asked his friends about it, but they were just vague. “Why fly about the volcano? Well, no reason, I suppose,” they’d say. He swallowed down his annoyance. And finally asked his mother.

“Son,” she said, “you’re a good son.”

He nodded his thanks.

“But sometimes I think you miss things from doing everything so seriously. Life is more than keeping fed; it’s also about enjoying the fish you caught. It’s more than having a nest; it’s also about rejoicing in the chicks you raise. It’s more than chatting with friends; it’s also about enjoying their company in silence.”

“Son,” she said, “I know you can use you wings to get from place to place. But did you ever just stretch them out and fly?”

He looked puzzled.

“Sometimes,” she told him, “you just need to fly.”

You and I, well, we don’t have hollow bones and feathered arms. We’ll have to fly in other ways. But when we do find those ways – a song to sing, or a hill to climb, or a picture to make, or a thought to think – that’s when we, too, can fly.

And I assure you that this koa’e kea: he learned to fly.

Kilauea Summit (Photo by Eric Anderson)

Photo of white-tailed topic bird (koa’e kea) in flight by Yooshau – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18333581.