Maui's Native Birds

I wasn't checked into my Maui hotel for more than five minutes before I noticed a Pacific golden plover inspecting the lawn in front of my room's lanai. This long-distance migratory bird divides its time between arctic environments like Alaska, where it breeds, and tropical lands like Hawaii, where it just feeds. It stood out in stark contrast with the many other birds populating the resort's tropical beachfront landscape: all of them, year-round transplants. They were introduced during the past two centuries and fill the voids left by the native birds that started disappearing at the same time man settled the islands almost a thousand years ago.

Plovers almost certainly began visiting the Hawaiian islands long before the first Polynesians discovered the archipelago. While I saw one hunting for insects in my resort's manicured St. Augustine grass, it's just as likely to forage in nearby habitat that hasn't changed over the millenia, like along the sandy beach and the lava-rock shoreline. On the other hand the much more numerous house sparrows, Java finches and mynas - brought by Europeans starting in the nineteenth century - probably prefer the cornucopia of seeds and berries dropping from the non-indigenous flora that pepper the hotel's verdant pathways.

From northwest Maui where I was vacationing it takes an hour-and-a-half drive to find truly native Hawaiian birds like the honeycreepers. With widely varying colors, bill shapes and sizes, these avians were especially prized by the early Hawaiian people. The rich reds, bright yellows and stark blacks of the birds' feathers were used to decorate the cloaks and adornments of the most important tribal leaders.

It seems like most of the honeycreepers survived this first wave of human encroachment, even though the Hawaiians deforested and degraded much of the landscape. By the early 1800's, European and American traders, whalers and settlers all started placing their own indelible and harsher footprint on Hawaii. Along with the barrels of lamp oil, crates of bibles, and cages of northern cardinals, mosquitoes arrived on the isolated islands.

Honeycreepers had no immunity to a host of avian diseases that were easily transmitted by the pesky insects. Meanwhile the birds' traditional habitats were dramatically transformed if not destroyed by large-scale agricultural development. As a result, the only colonies of birds that held out were the ones that lived at higher and cooler elevations in the islands' interiors where mosquitoes couldn't survive and some remnants of native forests remained intact.

Additional stresses like invasive plant species and introduced feral mammals - especially pigs - continued to degrade even more of the honeycreepers' natural habitat throughout the twentieth century. As a result most of the species became extinct. But the next wave of human contact is pushing the remaining few species' survival to the tipping point in a more indirect way through climate change.

As global temperatures increase, mosquitoes live at higher and higher elevations. One honeycreeper population - that of the i'iwi - has recently plummeted on Kauai where the highest peak on the island barely reaches a mile.

So it was no surprise that I found myself at Hosmer Grove, which sits at 7,000 feet in Haleakala National Park, to see first-hand a few birds that once thrived all over the Aloha State's undisturbed landscape. For the moment 'i'wis seem to be faring well in this forest of both native and non-native trees. Ralph Hosmer planted it a century ago to address the erosion and drought that accompanied widespread deforestation for cattle grazing and agriculture. Since then, the National Park Service has absorbed the property and has started replanting native shrubland in adjacent tracts of land.

It was in the overlook past the shady groves of eucalyptus and pine trees that I spotted an i'iwi. Honeycreepers fill the same niche that hummingbirds do in the Americas: feeding on the nectar of blossoming flowers. And in this corner of the park, a number of native trees - 'ohi'a lehuas and at at least one 'ilihai - were in full bloom, providing at least one i'iwi plenty of opportunities for a meal.

The bird is a brilliant scarlet color with black wings and a curved orange bill. Its beak is especially adapted for feeding on the nectar of certain Hawaiian flowers.

I saw another honeycreeper, the 'amakihi, bright olive-yellow and feeding in a distant 'ohi'a lehua tree. However, I missed seeing two other local residents: the 'apapane and the 'alauahio. These three birds are less threatened than the i'iwi which is in itself actually doing much better than two other honeycreepers: the kiwikiu (or Maui parrotbill) and the 'akohekoe. There may be only five hundred of the parrotbills alive today and just a couple thousand of the 'akohekoes. These one-of-a-kind birds live exclusively on Maui in the Nature Conservancy's Waikamoi Preserve adjacent to Hosmer Grove.

Maui and all the Hawaiian islands offer an exotic adventure and escape for even the most jaded traveler. Sandy beaches, tropical gardens, breathtaking volcanic mountain scenery, rainbow-draped skies, fascinating Polynesian culture and every human comfort a five-star resort can offer. But finding native wildlife can be a challenge and a sobering reminder that mankind has left a lasting scar on a once lush and fertile Eden.

Fortunately, migratory birds like the plover, shearwater, booby and tropicbird are all still regular visitors. Meanwhile a fragile native ecosystem hangs on in pockets of forests high on volcanic slopes where a handful of native honeycreeper species found nowhere else in the world still safely shelter. But the easiest authentic wildlife adventure in Maui lies just a few feet beyond your resort's swimming pool. Put on on your snorkel gear and visit coral reefs teeming with the same exotic tropical fishes and green sea turtles that the first Polynesian voyagers saw a millennium ago.