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To the Beauty of Birds

The ‘I’iwi Vestiaria coccinea is one of the most beautiful of the Hawaiian birds. In Hawaiian ‘i’s’ are pronounced ‘e’ so this is pronounced E E V. It is found above 3,500 feet in the high native forests of Maui, Kaua’i and The Big Island. These were photographed in the Hosmer Grove of the Haleakala National Park. This small campground has a 0.6 mile nature trail that includes an overlook onto an expanse of forest tops.

The long curved bill is ideally suited to nectar feeding. The ‘I’iwi often goes about this upside down (4673). It is generally a very shy bird but fortunately for photographers they seem to be comfortable with people in the grove and close ups are possible.

On my first visit to Hosmer Grove I only saw the Apapane and was disappointed at missing the ‘I’iwi and Amakiki. However, David Buchanan, one of the fellow residents of Honokeana Cove, was a long time bird photographer in Hawaii and I learned that he and a fellow native Hawaiian bird photographer Carl Yaragawa, were going back Hasmer Grove for a photo shoot in a few days. I horned in on their trip and we had a wonderful day. Carl had an older Nikon with a 500 mm lens without image stabilization. It was so large it required a tripod. He set up near a flowering plant and just patiently waited for nectar feeding birds to come and feed. This worked! His name is on the photos he took.

I got one picture of a juvenile ‘I’iwi that was a bit out of focus. David was so excited about this he went back a few days later and got several good shots of juveniles. They are brownish in color and lack the bright red of the adults. His photos have his initials DB on them.

While the nature trail was productive, there was so much activity just at the campground that we mostly stayed there next to a flowering plant. This is consistent with the story that native boys used to catch this bird for its feathers by holding a flower in their fingers and when the bird inserted its curved beak they pressed their fingers and thumb together to capture it.

I had to opportunity for a second go at the birds of Hasmer Grove when we returned to Maui a year later. This time the photos were better. Al four of the honey creepers were there to be photographed. The red honey creepers “I’iwi, Apapone, and the green honey creepers Maui Amakihi and Alauahio (Maui Creeper). The new ‘I’iwi photos (3240-3665) are shown here.

In 2013 on our trip to the Big Island and the Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge I was able to photograph more I'iwi (5xxx series).

'I'iwi