What to look for in nature in Hawaii this February

It sits right in the middle of it. The humpback sanctuary’s boating guide gives January through March as the usual peak in humpback numbers, and a 2022 sanctuary report put it the same way: sightings climb to a high between January and March and then taper off until the season closes in early May. On the water that means the full cast is present at once: mothers with calves that are now weeks or months old, escorts trailing them, and fast-moving packs of males pushing for a place beside a female.

The shore counts show how steady that high point can be. On February 28, 2026, volunteers logged 1,935 sightings, only 12 fewer than on February 22, 2025. In 2024, rain, high surf and wind cut visibility at many sites and ended some counts early, yet the February tally still reached 2,141. The table shows how each island’s count has run.

Weather sets the numbers as much as the whales do. Strong winds and swells hampered the 2023 count, when 345 volunteers took part, while on February 28, 2026, 487 counters at 46 sites had sunny skies and calm seas for most of the morning. December’s song season and January’s newborn calves are on the earlier pages, December in Hawaii and January in Hawaii.

Saturday, February 27, 2027. The Sanctuary Ocean Count and the Great Whale Count both list it as the second of their three 2027 counts, after January 30 and before March 27, with counting from 8 a.m. to noon. The Pacific Whale Foundation runs the Maui sites and opens registration on December 14, 2026; for the sanctuary’s count on the other four islands, volunteers register at oceancount.org. Volunteers scan a set stretch of sea, tally every humpback in 15-minute blocks and note what the whales are doing, and site leaders show newcomers how on the morning itself.

Growing fast, and spending more and more time alone. Mōlī chicks hatch from the end of January into February, and at first one parent stays on or beside the chick while the other is away at sea. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff at Kīlauea Point describe that arrangement as lasting at least a few weeks; after that, as the chicks get stronger, they get more time on their own. Audubon, describing a Kauaʻi nest watched by a live camera, notes that each foraging trip can take several days.

The adults fish far out to sea for squid and other food at the ocean surface and carry it home to feed the chick. On Midway Atoll, far up the island chain, the Service described hundreds of thousands of Laysan and black-footed albatross chicks there taking deliveries from their parents in February 2026; one of them was the chick of Wisdom’s son, a bird banded N333, which made it a grandchild of the oldest known wild bird. On the main islands the colonies are far smaller, but the routine is the same, and the chicks will not fly until summer.

Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge on Kauaʻi was still closed for storm repairs in early October 2026; check its page before going.

In late February. Haleakalā National Park says its ʻuaʻu are at the colony from February through November and spend December and January out at sea, and a Kauaʻi seabird recovery project run with state and federal partners narrows it down: Maui birds reach their colonies in late February, while those on Hawaiʻi Island, Kauaʻi and Lānaʻi come back as much as a month later. The park’s colony, high on the mountain between about 8,000 and 10,000 feet, is the largest in the state, with an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 birds; its fact sheets give widely differing counts of breeding pairs.

No eggs are laid yet. The first weeks are for clearing out burrows, which can run from 3 to 30 feet into the slope, and for pairs to find each other again; the birds mate for life. Then they leave again for about a month, the pre-laying exodus, and come back to lay a single egg that both parents incubate for close to two months. Because the adults fly in after dark and leave before first light, most people never see one, but you can hear them.

Mongooses, feral cats, rats and dogs prey on the birds and their chicks, and the park lists them as a leading threat alongside habitat loss. Stay on trails, and never let a dog loose on the mountain.

At the coastal wetlands, and February is the last full month for the most sheltered of them. Aeʻo, the endangered Hawaiian stilt, nest between March and August according to DLNR, with the peak in May and June, on freshly exposed mud and pond islands. In winter the same ponds hold migrants too: Maui’s Keālia Pond refuge counts upward of 30 kinds of waterfowl, shorebirds and migratory ducks there in the cool months, some from Alaska and Canada and the occasional bird from Asia.

On Oʻahu, James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge near Kahuku is closed to the public except for guided bird tours, which run only in the non-breeding season, from fall into late winter; the 2024–25 tours ran from late November to late February. A volunteer Friends group for the Oʻahu refuges leads them on selected Saturdays, for no more than 20 people at a time, ages 10 and up. In early October the 2026–27 tour dates had not yet been posted, so check the Friends’ tour page; places are limited.

Hawaiʻi Audubon’s Kōlea Count takes winter reports until March 31, and February is a good month to keep logging the plovers on a familiar lawn before they leave for Alaska in spring.

Usually from late February into April, and it hangs on rain. University of Hawaiʻi extension researchers explain that Kona’s cool, dry winter slows the coffee trees into a semi-dormant state while their flower buds form. On the lower slopes of the coffee belt, by late winter the trees can look close to dying of thirst. Then, a week or two after the first soaking rain, usually in late February or March according to the extension guide, the buds open together and whole hillsides turn white, a sight growers call “Kona snow.” Three or four blossoming flushes come in March and April, each after a heavy shower, and blooms that open on dry days set fruit best.

The coffee belt runs roughly parallel to the coast from Palani Junction south to Puʻuhonua Road, between about 700 and 2,000 feet. In a dry El Niño winter the first big bloom may have to wait for rain, so watch the forecast: a good soaking on the Kona slopes is the signal to drive up within a week or two.

High on the volcanoes, yes; at sea level it is close to a tie with January. In the 1991–2020 normals, the 11,000-foot station on Mauna Loa’s slope has both its coolest afternoons and its most freezing nights in February, about nine of them, and the Haleakalā ranger station’s average high bottoms out at 59.7 °F, tied with March. Down at the airports, February nights run within a few tenths of a degree of January’s.

Rain shifts, too. On the windward side February is often wetter than January: Hilo’s normal climbs to about 10 inches, and Līhuʻe’s to more than 3.5. Leeward stations change little, and Kona’s coast stays near an inch. This is still Kona-low season, and February has brought some of the wildest weather on record. In early February 2019 a very strong Kona low brought measurable snow to Polipoli Spring on the slopes of Haleakalā, and a NOAA climate summary reported waves near 60 feet on Oʻahu’s north shore, with the Hanalei buoy off Kauaʻi measuring 38-foot significant wave heights.

For the next front or Kona low, the hour-by-hour forecast shows the wind swinging and the rain arriving, and the cloud forecast helps pick a clear morning to look for summit snow.

That is the usual pattern, and February is when it tends to bite. Odds are high that this event is a big one. The federal assessment of September 10 put the likelihood of an exceptionally powerful episode, holding into the islands’ wet months, at over 90 percent. A NOAA fact sheet on El Niño in Hawaii, from the Pacific region’s climate office, lays out the typical course: rain runs above normal while El Niño is building, especially August through October, then falls off quickly from November and is well below average by February of the following year, with widespread dryness common and normal rain not back until about July.

The same sheet warns of reduced cattle feed and a greater chance of wildfire, especially from January through March, as pastures and leeward grasslands dry out in what should be the green season. It also notes that exceptionally large winter swells from storms passing north of the islands are common in El Niño years, and that warmer ocean water raises the risk of coral bleaching. A dry season overall does not rule out a single flooding storm.

NOAA updates its seasonal outlooks every month, around mid-month; the newest rain and temperature odds for the islands are on the seasonal outlook maps from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.

About half an hour, and now the mornings join in. In Honolulu the sun rises at 7:09 a.m. and sets at 6:22 p.m. on February 1; by February 28 it rises at 6:53 a.m. and sets at 6:35 p.m., so the day grows by 29 minutes, with the earlier sunrise doing a little more of the work than the later sunset. In January, by contrast, almost all of the gain came in the evening. The daily gain speeds up slightly through the month, from about a minute a day at the start to a little more by the end.

Groundhog Day falls on Tuesday, February 2, but the true halfway mark from the December solstice to the March equinox arrives on Wednesday, February 3, in Hawaii time.

Times for your own beach or ridge are one search away in the daylight calculator.

Times are Hawaii Standard Time. Two bright planets reach opposition in Leo within nine days of each other, Mercury gives its best evening view of the season, and every main phase of the moon this month falls on a Saturday. The darkest evenings, free of moonlight, run from about February 2 to 11, on both sides of the February 6 new moon.

Check the moon phase calendar for each night’s moonrise, and a quick look at the cloud cover forecast tells you whether trade-wind clouds will hide Jupiter.

1. Join the February 27 whale count. Saturday morning, 8 a.m. to noon, on the main islands. Maui registration opens December 14, 2026, through the Pacific Whale Foundation; the other islands sign up at oceancount.org.
2. Count birds for the Great Backyard Bird Count, which runs four days this year, February 12 through 15. Fifteen minutes in a yard, park or beach is enough for a checklist, and common mynas and zebra doves count just as much as rarities. Details are at birdcount.org.
3. Visit a mōlī chick at Kaʻena Point. Go early, before the heat, stay on the path, and count how many chicks are sitting alone.
4. Book a refuge bird walk. The guided tours at James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge on Oʻahu run only in the winter non-breeding season, so February may be the last chance until fall; the Friends group asks that children be at least 10.
5. Look for the cherry blossoms in Waimea on Hawaiʻi Island. The county’s annual festival is usually in early February; check the date with Hawaiʻi County Parks and Recreation.
6. Mark World Whale Day. The Pacific Whale Foundation founded it, and it falls on the third Sunday of February, February 21 in 2027. Whether there will be a Maui celebration in 2027 had not been announced in early October; check with the foundation.
7. Watch Jupiter rise at sunset on February 10, and find the Snow Moon with Mars nearby on the evening of the 20th.

A Naturalist’s Field Journal gives young counters a home for their tallies and sketches, and our nature guides for every state follow the year month by month.

• Hunting and blaze orange. The state’s main game bird season closed on the last Sunday of January, January 31, 2027, though the game bird rules open a special dove season on private lands only, from the first Saturday in February (February 6) through the last Sunday in March on most islands, on weekends and state holidays (DLNR is considering game bird rule changes, so confirm dates with the agency). Game mammal hunting goes on: pigs and goats are open all year in many units, and under DLNR’s game mammal rules several units open in February, among them Molokaʻi Units C, D and E and Maui Unit F, on weekends and state holidays, with Presidents’ Day (Monday, February 15) a holiday. On Lānaʻi, DLNR’s 2027 axis deer announcement schedules four five-day archery hunts, February 3 to 7, 10 to 14, 17 to 21 and 24 to 28. In units where guns may be used, every hunter, and anyone walking with one, has to put on an outer garment (a shirt, vest, jacket or coat) of solid, commercially made blaze orange (or orange mesh no coarser than an eighth of an inch) that shows from front and back, pack or no pack. Orange camouflage is not allowed. If you hike in a hunting area on a weekend, wear something bright.
• Kauaʻi closures. On September 30 DLNR said most forestry and wildlife lands and trails on Kauaʻi were still closed after Hurricanes Lowell and Nolo, with only a few areas, such as Hunting Unit C and parts of Unit F, reopened. Check DLNR’s current notices before any Kauaʻi hike or hunt.
• Brush fires. If El Niño dries the leeward grass, a spark from a car, a mower or a campfire can start a fast fire. Park off dry grass, and never toss cigarettes.
• Floods. Heavy rain is still possible from any passing front or Kona low. A stream can rise in minutes from rain falling far upslope, so stay out of streambeds in bad weather and never cross moving water. Fresh water and mud can carry leptospirosis, so keep cuts covered.
• Big surf and whales at sea. Winter swells keep hitting north- and west-facing shores. Swim only at guarded beaches, watch waves from high ground, and keep paddlecraft well clear of whales.
• Cold and altitude. February brings the most freezing nights of the year high on the volcanoes. Carry warm layers, gloves and a full tank on the Maunakea and Haleakalā roads, expect closures for ice, and come down if you feel the headache and nausea of altitude sickness.
• Kīlauea. The volcano observatory had Kīlauea at the orange WATCH level in early October 2026, with glow still visible at the summit vents. Check the newest update before you visit the national park, and skip heavy vog days if you have heart or lung trouble.
• Forest hygiene. Brush off soil and spray boots and gear with 70 percent rubbing alcohol before and after every native forest walk, to avoid moving the fungi behind Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death.