(Back on the continent. This bug is not from Hawaii.)
This whitespotted sawyer beetle (Monochamus scutellatus) looks fearsome but eats only dead or dying pines and spruces. Native to North America, he’s found north of North Carolina across the U.S. and Canada wherever his food grows.
Because they eat dead or dying trees whitespotted sawyers aren’t a problem to standing timber but they mess up the loggers’ convenience. If workers leave cut logs in the forest during the summer the females lay eggs in them and the wood is damaged when the loggers return. The answer is to cut trees in fall or winter and retrieve them before the adult beetles emerge in the summer.
This photo by Thomas Schoch was taken at Sequoia National Park, California where the beetle was perched to admire the view, king of all he surveys.
(featured photo from Wikimedia Commons; click on the caption to see the original)
Greater koa finch. Koa forest cut down. Last seen in 1896.
Hawaii mamo. Last seen in 1898.
Greater 'amakihi. Land cleared. Last seen in 1901.
Black mamo. Last seen in 1907.
Laysan honeycreeper. Extinction by rabbit in 1923.
Hawai'i 'o'o. Last seen in 1934.
O'ahu akialo'a. Last seen in 1940.
Maui 'akepa. Last seen in 1988.
Po'ouli (black-faced honeycreeper). Last seen 26 Nov 2004.
By now in my series on Hawaii you’ve probably noticed that the rarest birds on the islands are threatened with extinction. Sadly this situation is normal. So many Hawaiian species have gone extinct and so many are on the edge today that Hawaii is known as the Extinction Capital of the World. The group of forest birds called Hawaiian honeycreepers are a case in point.
Five million years ago a flock of finches similar to redpolls (Carpodacus erythrinus)arrived from Asia, flying non-stop for more than 4,000 miles. When they arrived, Oahu and the Big Island didn’t exist, but over millions of years they spread out and evolved into 59 species of Hawaiian honeycreepers with a wide variety of beaks for exploiting Hawaii’s food sources. They diversified more than Darwin’s finches.
Each bird was perfectly evolved to survive Hawaii’s dangers but had no defense against off-island threats. Their exposure came with the arrival of humans. We came in two waves.
Polynesians arrived in Hawaii around 400AD and were here alone for 1,400 years. During that period 30% of the Hawaiian honeycreepers went extinct.
In 1778 Captain James Cook was the first European to see Hawaii, prompting immigration from the rest of the world. Since then, in just 240 years, another 39% of the honeycreepers have gone extinct. 18 species remain but six are so critically endangered they may be gone soon.
Hawaii’s endemic birds go extinct so easily because of …
Habitat loss: Humans cleared the forest for settlements. Some species had such a small range or specialized food that when their patch was gone, they were too.
Introduced species, especially rats, cats and mongoose: The birds don’t know to move their nests out of reach.
Avian malaria and avian pox: Honeycreepers have no immunity.
Mosquitoes: Avian diseases, carried by mosquitoes, arrived with introduced birds. Honeycreepers don’t know to brush mosquitoes away. They catch malaria easily and it kills them.
Climate change: There’s safety from mosquitoes at high elevation but climate change is heating the mountains. The mosquitoes are moving uphill.
Avian diseases caught from mosquitoes are the big problem. Fortunately there’s a silver lining. One of the honeycreepers, the Hawai’ian amakihi, can now live with avian malaria and is expanding its range within mosquito territory.
This 27-minute video, made in 2005 by Susanne Clara Bard, tells the story of the Hawai’ian amakihi’s survival. Though this video is a lot longer than I normally post, it’s worth even a short look to learn why Hawaiian birds face so many challenges.
The Hawai’ian amakihi evolved to survive malaria in only 200 years.
(images from Wikimedia Commons; click on the links to see the species account at Wikipedia)
Tour Day 9: Leaving the Big Island of Hawai’i for home
We have so many crows in Pittsburgh in the winter that it’s hard to imagine any crow becoming extinct but this species, the Hawaiian crow or ‘alala (Corvus hawaiiensis), declined rapidly in the 20th century from disease, habitat loss, and predation. They are now extinct in the wild.
Because the birds were obviously in trouble, a captive breeding program began in the 1970s but it wasn’t enough. By 2002 Earth’s only ‘alalas lived in captivity so scientists prepared carefully for their first release.
Five Hawaiian crows were released in the forest in 2016 but the attempt was unsuccessful. Three of them died, the majority killed by the i’o, the native Hawaiian hawk. The remaining two were brought back into captivity.
The ‘Alala Project revamped their strategy for the next release. The crows had lived in safety for generations and apparently didn’t realize the hawk was so dangerous, or they didn’t warn each other.
Since crows are safer when they stick together the team assessed each crow for its compatibility and hierarchy and chose the group accordingly. They also taught the crows to recognize and raise the alarm when they heard or saw a Hawaiian hawk. The alarm call is important.
Eleven birds spent nine months preparing for their release (read more in this Audubon article). Six were released in September 2017, five more at a nearby location in October 2017. They were monitored daily during their first year in the forest.
So far so good. As of fall 2018 they are thriving and they are vocal. Here’s a video from the ‘Alala Project taken during ongoing tracking of the birds and their sounds.
These Hawaiian crows have re-learned the wild. There’s hope they’ll be the start of a future ‘alala population on the islands.
A trip to Hawaii would not be complete without a visit to an active volcano at Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park. If it weren’t for volcanoes Hawaii wouldn’t exist.
The Hawaiian island chain is a string of mountains created by a volcanic hotspot under the Pacific plate. As the plate moves northwestward, the hotspot keeps bubbling up in a new location. The older islands have extinct volcanoes. The newest island, the Big Island of Hawai’i, is where all the action is.
Volcanoes are incredibly awe inspiring and deadly if not treated with respect. Explosions, fountains, and lava flows are obvious dangers. Volcanic ash clogs everything (including airplane engines) and the sulfur dioxide emissions can kill.
Hawaiian tradition says that Pele, the goddess of volcanoes and fire, lives in the crater of Kilauea and controls its lava flow. For centuries Hawaiians made religious visits to offer her gifts. Sometimes those visits ended badly. Wikipedia explains that “In 1790, a party of warriors (along with women and children who were in the area) were caught in an unusually violent eruption. Many were killed and others left footprints in the lava that can still be seen today.”
Kilauea has been continuously active since 1983. When it erupted violently from 3 May to 4 September 2018 its lava flows destroyed Highway 132, the beach towns of Vacationland and Kapoho, and parts of the Leilani Estates subdivision. By the time the eruption ended Kilauea had added 875 acres of new land to Hawai’i.
This U.S. Geological Survey video shows conditions at Leilani Estates in late May 2018 while a USGS team monitored the lava flow.
They also monitored it from the air in this flyover from lava fountain to the sea.
Meanwhile a new volcano is growing offshore. Lo’ihi is already 10,100 feet above the sea floor and only 3,000 feet below the waves. Right next to the Big Island, its shape is the pale orange semi-circle on the map below.
The akiapola’au (Hemignathus wilsoni), or aki’, is a Hawaiian honeycreeper with such a small population and such a restricted range that he may well go extinct in this century. He’s hard to find, of course, but he’s well worth the effort.
The aki’s beak is most unusual but it’s perfect for gathering what he eats. He probes for spiders, beetles and caterpillars and, like a sapsucker, he drills rows of holes in an “aki’ tree” and returns when the sap wells up.
Despite his similar food requirements the aki’ doesn’t have a woodpecker beak. Instead his lower mandible is short and straight with a chisel tip while his upper mandible is long and thin, curved down, and flexible.
Each half of his beak has a different purpose. He chisels and pecks with the lower mandible or props it in place while he probes and scrapes with his upper mandible. As you can see in the top photo, there’s even a small gap between the two mandibles. How strange!
The aki’ is listed as Endangered for good reason. His population is small and declining. As of 1995 there were only 800 individuals left on Earth, scattered in severely fragmented areas in the mountains above 5,000 feet.
Many things contribute to the aki’s decline including habitat loss from logging and farming and predation by introduced species, especially rats, cats and dogs. The aki’ is also threatened by avian diseases carried by mosquitoes; Hawaiian birds have no immunity to them. The mosquitoes, accidentally introduced to Hawaii beginning in 1826, cannot live in the cold climate above 5,000 feet. That’s why Hawaiian honeycreepers like the aki’ still survive there.
Unfortunately climate change is warming the Hawaiian mountains and the mosquitoes are moving up. How long will we still be able to find this beautiful bird with such an unusual beak?
Today our VENT birding tour has special permission to enter the Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge on the eastern slope of Mauna Kea where there are more native birds than anywhere else on the islands. We’re going to see a lot of birds and a lot of them are endangered.
The refuge, founded in 1985 to protect Hawaiian rainforest birds and their habitat, is closed to the general public because the ohi’a trees (pictured above) are dying of a fungus that’s spread too easily by humans. Rapid Oh’ia Death kills the trees within a few days or weeks. Hundreds of thousands of trees have died since 2013. This is especially scary because the ohi’a is the most common native tree and so many birds rely on it. Many of them have unusual beaks.
The I’iwi (Drepanis coccinea), at top and below, is nearly the same color as ohi’a flowers. Vermilion red with a decurved bill that’s perfect for probing flowers and sipping nectar, he perches like a songbird or hovers like a hummingbird. He was so common when Polynesians first arrived in Hawai’i that they made his feathers into royal cloaks.
The ‘apapane (Himatione sanguinea), below, also feeds on ohi’a flowers and is red and black like the i’iwi. However his color is scarlet, his undertail coverts are white, and his dark bill has a gentle curve.
The Hawai’i akepa (Loxops coccineus) is a tiny orange-red bird with brownish primaries. This endangered crossbill feeds on spiders, insects and nectar in the ohi’a forest. Yes, his bill is curved and crossed!
And finally, the Hawai’i amakihi (Chlorodrepanis virens) is certainly not red but he has a curved beak that’s useful for gleaning, probing, and sipping while he eats spiders, insects, sap, nectar and fruit. He’s a versatile bird whose population is doing quite well with 800,000 to 900,000 on the islands.
Tropical islands always have lots of seabirds but are often missing entire families of land birds. Sometimes a family is represented by just one endemic species. In Hawaii this is true of both crows (Corvidae) and hawks (Accipitridae). There is one endemic crow, the Hawaiian crow, and only one endemic hawk.
The Hawaiian hawk or i’o (Buteo solitarius) is in the same genus as our red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) but he evolved to eat birds, such as rails and ducks, because there weren’t any small mammals on the islands. When humans brought rodents, lizards and game birds to Hawaii many of the hawk’s original prey disappeared so he switched to hunting introduced species.
The Hawaian hawk comes in light morph and dark morph plumage. Dark morphs are dark chocolate brown. Pictured here are light morph individuals — an adult above, a juvenile below. You can tell the males and females apart not by plumage but by size. Females are 50% heavier than males, the most sexually dimorphic of all buteos.
As with red-tailed hawks, juvenile i’os are easier to get close to.
The i’o is a loud bird whose Hawaiian name imitates his voice: “I’o.” “Eee Ohhh.” He often calls while soaring. Click here to hear.
The Hawaiian hawk used to inhabit four islands but is now found only on the Big Island of Hawai’i. The population declined for many years but is making a comeback. That’s good news for Hawai’i. This hawk is important to Hawaiian culture and a symbol of Hawaiian royalty.
(photo of adult (striped) hawk by Bettina Arrigoni on Flickr, Creative Commons license; photo of juvenile (pale) hawk from Wikimedia Commons. click on the captions to see the originals)
Tour Day 5: Travel from Kauai to the Big Island of Hawai’i, Kealakekua and Pu’u Anahulu
This is not somebody’s rooster. He didn’t escape to the wild but he has the same ancestors as the chickens we humans domesticated about 8,000 years ago for meat and eggs.
Red junglefowl (Gallus gallus) are native to India and east Asia but were introduced to Indonesia, the Phillippines and Polynesia where they remain wild today. When humans first came to Hawaii in 400 AD they brought red junglefowl with them. The birds walked into the jungle and felt right at home.
Today our Victor Emanuel Nature Tour visits Koke’e State Park on the island of Kauai where red junglefowl roam and run.
If you want to see a Laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis) Hawaii is the place to be. 99.7% of the species nests on the Hawaiian island chain. Midway Atoll holds the largest albatross colony on earth.
Most of the world’s 22 albatross species live on the southern oceans but the Laysan albatross is one of three that occurs exclusively in the northern hemisphere. Compared to most, the Laysan is relatively small. The wandering albatross has a wingspan of nearly 10 feet. The Laysan’s wingspan is 6.4 to 6.6 feet, about the size of a bald eagle.
Albatrosses spend their lives roaming the open ocean feeding on squid and fish near the surface of the waves. They are built to soar, but they don’t fly high. Their long wingspan allows them to soar dynamically near the ocean surface with a minimum of effort. In this way they fly 10,000 miles a year.
Albatrosses only visit land to nest. When not nesting, the Laysan albatross covers the range shown below, leaving Hawaii for Mexico, California, Alaska, Kamchatka, Japan, and the Phillipines.
Named in 1893 for Laysan Island, where the species was first collected, their favorite nesting site is at Midway Atoll, a group of three islands near the northwestern edge of the island chain.
Wisdom was banded as an adult at Midway in 1956. Since her species cannot breed until it’s five years old and usually delays breeding until age seven or eight, Wisdom is at least 68 years old now, possibly older than 70. Though not on a webcam this year, her fame spread in the past when her nest was visible online.
Most Laysan albatrosses breed every other year but Wisdom returns to Midway annually to court with her mate Akeakamai, lay her single egg, and take turns incubating the egg and raising their chick. This season she laid her egg around 29 November 2018.
It takes two adults eight months to raise a Laysan albatross chick. They mate for life but when there’s a shortage of males two females will team up to raise one chick per year. Read about this unusual solution at: Ladies Make Do in a Pinch.
Laysan albatrosses typically live 40 years but their delayed breeding age and single chick in 1-2 years means it takes at least 10 years for a Laysan albatross pair to replace themselves.
Our tour won’t be visiting Midway but we’ll see Laysan albatrosses today at Kileauea Point on the island of Kauai.
(photo credits: Albatross in flight by Bettina Arrigoni on Flickr with Creative Commons license. Range map from Wikimedia Commons. Midway Atoll map from USGS. Wisdom and Akeakamai photos from USFWS Pacific on Flickr. Click on the captions to see the originals)
Tour Day 3: Travel from Oahu to Kauai and its north shore refuges, Kileauea Point
