All in a week’s work. (Chapter 1: Komorebi)

An adult 'I’iwi, caught and banded for ongoing research on Hawai'i Island’s native forest birds.

In this week’s three-part installment of writing into the black hole of the internet, we follow a group of field biologists around the Island of Hawai'i, where they aim to find, follow, and protect the native birds that call the island home. We start on a Monday and end on a Thursday. We start cold, get very hot, then end at a somewhat comfortable temperature. We start with birds in the hand, we find birds under lava, and end with birds that may or may not even exist. So strap in and hold onto the “oh shit handle”, because these lava rock roads can be bumpy.

Chapter 1: Komorebi

Two of our heroes, Karla and Iz, finding warmth in the dappled morning sunlight.

We begin this story on a Monday in our beloved Kīpuka Waiākea at a brisk temperature, so brisk, in fact, that it required one of our heroes to don two rain jackets just to keep warm. I thought we were in a tropical paradise! (I hope you east coasters are handling the so-called “arctic blast” alright, my apologies). The morning chorus rang through the trees as the morning light dappled the forest floor. Komorebi is a Japanese word that translates to something like“sunlight filtering through trees”. Why isn’t there an equivalent word in English? We have to write out a whole stupid sentence to describe something so pure and universal.

We set up our nets and waited out the first net run in the sun. We needed to be warm, it was going to be a big day.

Alex and Karla in komorebi.

On this particular big day we caught all but one species of native forest bird that inhabits the kīpuka, only missing the critically endangered and ever-elusive forest fairy, Hawai'i 'Ākepa (Loxops coccineus). Yes, you heard that right. That means we caught 'I'iwi (Drepanis coccinea, title photo), 'Apapane (Hiatione sanguinea), Hawai'i 'Elepaio (Chasiempis sandwichensis), Hawai'i 'Amakihi (Chlorodrepanis virens), 'Ōma'o (Myadestes obscurus), and the other two critically endangered species, 'Akiapōlā'au (Hemignathus wilsoni) and Alawī (Loxops mana). Thinking ahead, these species are sure to be recurring characters in this blog, so best to introduce them all by name here. Let’s start with the 'alawī.

A known 'alawī that was originally captured on October 21, 2021 and recaptured last Monday, January 6, 2025.

The gorgeous avian model pictured above is Mr. Whale the 'alawī. I call him that because his right leg is banded with a white plastic band and an aluminum federal band, white/aluminum, WH/AL…whale. His mate, Mrs. Whale also sports this combo on her right leg, and so I called them The Whales. We use the colored plastic bands to give each bird a unique 4 color combo, two on each leg, one of which always being the aluminum federal band. The aluminum band is engraved with a 9-digit number that is also unique to the individual.

These bands help us know who is who while we have the birds in binocular view out in the forest. Being able to keep up with populations on the individual level is extremely helpful in understanding forest health through birds. We can tell who pairs up with who, who occupies this or that territory, what they eat or use as material for their nests, who hasn’t been seen for a while, or, my favorite “guess who I saw today!”. After a long time of following birds when you can be sure of their identity, you can start to tease out differences in behavior, foraging techniques, and vocalizations between individuals. Gathering this kind of insight into individual bird’s lives brings me pure joy and wonder.

Having birds in the hand is also an incredible way of appreciating the intricacies of their plumage, something that is quite difficult to do with just binoculars. Just look at his sleek black mask, the vibrant yellow lining of his flight feathers, his gentle white throat, the subtle olive tinge of his body feathers. It just doesn’t get much better than this.

This bird and his mate are known as The Whales. Mr. and Mrs. Whale built an extraordinary pseudo-cavity nest last year in an old koa snag, I’ll have to show you a picture sometime.

When we capture a bird, we take several measurements such as wing length, bill length, weight and levels of fat to assess the bird’s health. We attempt to determine the age and sex of the birds using a combination of plumage and breeding characteristics, along with the aforementioned body condition measurements. Some species, such as 'elepaio, 'akiapōlā'au, 'ākepa, and 'amakihi are sexually dimorphic (the males and females differ in some way visually), and some species are not, or are at least some are much more subtle with their differences. 'Alawī are not very sexually dimorphic, but luckily Mr. Whale is already a known male.

We also take a small blood sample from the bird to test for disease, primarily avian malaria. Avian malaria is a mosquito-borne disease that is currently the most daunting threat to Hawai'i’s native forest birds, especially the honeycreepers. Mosquitoes are not native to Hawai'i, they arrived on whaling ships in the early 1800s. The birds native to the islands never developed any resistance to the disease, and can often die by just one mosquito bite. Avian malaria, along with other human-caused problems like habitat loss, human-introduced mammals like rats, cats, pigs and mongoose, and overhunting has led to the extinction of at least 114 species of native Hawaiian land birds, and we are right on the brink of adding a few more species to that list.

Phew, okay didn't mean to go too hard on that topic, but it serves as a good introduction. These are the things my team and I are fighting everyday, little by little. We do this work to prevent more extinctions from occurring, to the best of our ability. Let’s get back on track.

There is an estimated ~1,500 'akiapōlā'au (Hemignathus wilsoni) remaining in the wild today. All the other members of their genus, Hemignathus, are extinct, all of which had marvelous bills and filled critical niches in Hawaiian forests.

We join our heroes back at the nets. After a steady morning of 'apapane banding and sunbeam catching, Alex and I stumbled upon an 'akiapōlā'au foraging among the koa branches overhead. 'Aki, as Iʻm sure you’ve noticed, sport a peculiar bill. They use it as a multitool of sorts. The lower mandible, stout and quite sharp, is used to bore into the wood of the trees, very much like the familiar woodpecker. Once the pecks have revealed some 'ono grindz in the form of juicy insect larva, the upper mandible is used to excavate said grindz from their woody chambers.

Since we were in banding mode, Alex quickly began playing playback audio to get the bird to respond. Respond it did quite aggressively, and in mere moments the bird hit the net. And out came a perfect specimen of evolution, a young male 'akiapōlā'au. We take him back to the banding station and surprise the rest of the group with the catch. He is processed and sent off with a new set of bands. We will keep up with him to the best of our ability, maybe he will give nesting a first try this year. He sports double orange bands on one of his legs; I have a feeling we’re going to call him 'ō'ō.

A view of 'ō'ō the 'aki’s right wing.

'Akiapōlā'au are the last of their kind.

A long, long line of isolated evolution has led the honeycreepers of Hawai'i to extraordinary forms. Unhindered by the stresses of humankind, dancing in a forest all their own, they adaptively radiated alongside the plants and insects (and the like) to maximize the niche cap and flourish. From one species of rosefinch came over 50 honeycreepers, in a matter of about 6 million years. In just 250 years, a number so much smaller than the number before that I need not even explain it, the honeycreeper species count has plummeted. We now find ourselves at our current total of 17, more than likely a few less if you are reading this a decade or two from now (for some reason).

'Aki are the last extant species of the honeycreeper genus Hemignathus, known as the “heterobills”, named so after their spectacular, multitool bills. Three of the other main Hawaiian Islands had an 'aki relative of their own, the Maui, O'ahu, and Kaua'i Nukupu'u. All were extinct by the early 1900s.

90% of all the terrestrial species that do or have at one point occupied these islands are endemic to Hawai'i, they exist nowhere else on the planet (this is the highest rate of endemism on said planet). Conservationists all across the archipelago, who’s numbers may be small but; oh! are they a fiery bunch, are dedicating their lives to preserve the precious dregs of Hawaiian biodiversity.

Oh, crap, I did it again. Truth is, it’s a pretty heavy topic, and I find it quite difficult to find the komorebi at the end of the tunnel. Now where did those heroes run off to?

Stay tuned for Chapter 2…

The Road to the Sea.