A Morning in Maui

I had been in Maui in October but just for a few minutes. I had not done any birding away from the Kahului airport.   Maui hosts several species that would be new for my Biggest Year. Six species of endemic honeycreepers have survived in the native forest on the flanks of the Haleakala Volcano. These include the Crested Honeycreeper or Maui A’kohekohe, the Maui Parrotbill and the Maui Alauahio which are only found in Maui, and are all critically endangered. The other three (Hawaii Amakihi, Apapane and I’iwi) are more widespread and seem to be adapting to new habitats at lower elevation. There is even evidence that they have developed some resistance to avian malaria, the principal cause of population declines for Hawaii’s endemic honeycreepers.  


My twin brother Oliver would join me for the second time this year. We landed in Maui at 5 PM  on Wednesday, December 6, 2023. 


Twelve hours later we were trucking up the Haleakala Crater Road in our rented Jeep Cherokee. After rising about 6500 feet above sea level, we turned off towards Hozmer’s Grove. Arriving at a small National Park campground, we hiked a short nature trail until we reached a couple of benches overlooking a small canyon of native forest dominated by ohia and momane trees. Colorful forest birds were buzzing all around.  After a couple of hours here we tallied about 15 Apapane, 12 Hawaii Amakihi, 8 I’iwi, and 2 Maui Alauahio (USA and Territories Biggest Year-bird number 830).


The morning was successful. The other two Maui endemic honeycreepers require special access to a closed Nature Conservancy property that is currently off limits to the public. 


To cap off the morning we noted some interesting exotic species on the mountain side, including Eurasian Skylark, Red-crested Cardinal, Northern Cardinal, House Sparrow and Japanese Bush-Warbler. 


We had 15 minutes available before

checking in to our 1 pm flight to Honolulu, the first leg of our trip to American Samoa. Kanaha Pond Sanctuary abuts the airport. A brief stop there was productive: Laughing Gull, Hawaiian Coot, Wandering Tattler, Sanderling, Ruddy Turnstone, Pacific Golden-Plover and numerous Hawaiian Stilt (an endemic subspecies of Black-necked Stilt). 


We ran into some bumps en route to American Samoa. That is a topic for another blog post. 

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