The Coqui Song

Ariel lives in a rain forest.  Her house is near Pahoa on the windward side of Hawaii, the Big Island.  Rain falls on the roof of Ariel’s house several times each night and usually once in the morning.  Something near 130 inches of rain falls in her area annually; while the leeward side of the island—about 30 miles distant—remains always in parched desert, capturing as little as 5 inches of moisture annually in some locations.  Only a dozen or so miles from Ariel, nearly 300 inches of rain falls annually.  The island, though only 93 miles wide at its greatest distance, upswings to an elevation of over 13,000 feet and boasts 11 of the 13 climate zones present on Earth.   The temperature is such that Ariel requires neither heat nor air conditioning.  The windows always remain open.

When I asked her what kind of heat she had in her house as we drove there for the first time, she did not understand the question.

“Heat?” she asked.  “Heat for what?”

At night the coqui tree frogs sing like mad birds from broad-leaf trees and from the vine understory that rises like walls only a few steps away on all sides of Ariel’s home.  The coqui are an invasive species originally from Puerto Rico.  Unchecked and without natural predators, as they are on Hawaii, the coqui can reach a population density approaching 20,000 frogs per acre.  Starting at dusk, the frogs begin a chirping symphony that continues without intermission until sunlight strikes a new day against the green canopy.  The coqui community song is so intense it sometimes causes Ariel’s house to vibrate with music, but this is by no means unpleasant.

The first night I experienced the coqui symphony, I stepped outside to try and fathom the immensity of it.  The song fell on me like a kind of audible rain, pushed at me like the wind.  The singing is breathless and whole.   And at the end of my first night on the island (an every night thereafter) the song of the frogs lulled me to a deep sleep.

--Mitchell Hegman.