NAWILIWILI – The birds seem to know. As the clock ticks towards the 3 p.m. hour, a flock of pigeons congregate at the entrance of the Nawiliwili Park access road in anticipation. They don’t coo. Occasionally, they take flight as
NAWILIWILI – The birds seem to know.
As the clock ticks towards the 3 p.m.
hour, a flock of pigeons congregate at the entrance of the Nawiliwili Park access road in anticipation.
They don’t coo. Occasionally, they take flight as an over-eager youngster runs through their midst.
But, as soon as the threat is gone, they wing back to the same corner at the park, waiting in silence.
Surfers and other park regulars know that soon “The Bird Lady” will arrive. The gathering of the pigeons is a sure sign of that.
Sumie Garcia, retired from the Foodland stores, and her husband Manuel Jr., retired from the former Kaua`i Resorts, arrive in a gray Crown Victoria. The birds wait in anticipation.
As the car parks next to the boulders, some take nervous flight. Sumi gets out and opens a door, revealing a box filled with containers of bird food. She works quickly, moving between the boulders and out into the flock, opening the container and laying one down as she works her way through the flock.
There’s a flurry of feathers as the flock lifts off while she makes her way through the feathered congregation.
“They seem to know,” she says as they descend on their once-a-day meal.
The Garcias started feeding the birds in 1987, Manuel said. At that time, the birds were left over from the Westin Kaua`i. Sumi explained that when the resort opened, they imported a lot of pigeons but then ran out of money. It was then that the Garcias entered the picture, arriving at the park daily with a ration of bird food to feed the approximately 25 birds that had strayed outside the resort’s boundaries to set up nests in the coconut trees at the park.
“They talk,” Sumi explained. “First there were only so much. Then, the numbers began to grow. It was like the birds told each other about the meal. ‘You need to go to the park. Mama comes every day!’ The babies grow up and they come, too.” Tuesday, like she does each day of the year, Sumi set up an area of food for the chickens and doves, and a separate area for the pigeons.
“They eat for about 15 or 20 minutes and then make their way to their nests,” Sumi said, pointing to an area across Nawiliwili Harbor.
“I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t gamble, I don’t travel. I can feed the birds,” Manuel said.
Over the 13 years the couple has been doing their daily visits, Manuel estimated, the bird food bill has amounted to several thousand dollars.
The birds’ diet consists of wild sunflower seeds-which they don’t appreciate being thrown by the handfuls, Sumi said-and scratch.
Sumi said a racing pigeon trainer once told them the park birds eat too much, but it’s only once a day.
“I like one Lincoln, but I got a Crown Victoria so I can feed the birds,” Manuel said as he held on to their pet dog who yelped with excitement as the feathered flock fluttered around Sumi.
Park regulars know the couple, if not by name, by their deeds.
Sumi said that when the tree trimmers come to “clean the coconut trees, the (pigeons’) nests get knocked down, babies fall out of nests and are abandoned. Why can’t they watch?” As the birds begin to wing their way across the harbor, their hunger satisfied for another day, the couple gazed at the remaining flock.
“We’re going to continue feeding them until they tell us we can’t do it any more,” Sumi said.
The birds know.
Staff photographer Dennis Fujimoto can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 253).
(Photo by Dennis Fujimoto; dfujimoto@pulitzer.net)
