Howdy, friends.  I hope everyone who celebrated or is currently celebrating a solstice-adjacent festival had/is having a good one as the case may be.  Your fearless WPT host flew back home on the 25th, having agreed to work the 26th, and instead burned leave to go home and deal with an emergent plumbing issue.  At least I was able to grab Broccoli from the sitter on short notice, so he kept me company while I moved the whole-ass fridge out of the way of the water shut-off valve for the house.

Anyway, this week’s bird is the ‘I’iwi (pronounced ee-EE-vee) or scarlet honeycreeper.  This bird is native to the Hawaiian islands, where it is both iconic and culturally significant.  Along with the feathers of another species of honeycreeper, the mamo honeycreeper, the feathers of ‘i’iwi were prized in the feather trade and used to make feathered cloaks and hats which were indicative of noble status.  In Hawaiian mythology, the demi-god Maui is fond of the birds and paints each one with bright red and gold.

As to be expected based on its unique bill shape, the ‘i’iwi mostly feeds on nectar from flowers.  It used to feed primarily on a group of plants called Hawaiian lobelioids.  When the lobelioid population dropped sharply beginning in 1902, it began feeding on the flowers of ʻōhiʻa lehua (Metrosideros polymorpha) trees.  It will also feed on small arthropods like beetles and centipedes.  Pairs of ‘i’iwi will break off and form a breeding pair between January and June, coordinating with the peak bloom of local ʻōhiʻa lehua blossoms.  The nest is constructed from plant fibers, down feathers and flower petals, and 2-3 birds will fledge in about 24 days.  Juveniles will acquire their adult plumage after about two years.

These birds are referred to as altitudinal migrants, they will feed at higher altitudes as flowers there bloom throughout the year.  This presents an interesting issue.  Foraging at lower altitudes will expose the birds to lower altitude diseases, to which they would not be exposed if they stayed at higher altitudes.  Of specific concern is mosquito-borne avian malaria, to which ‘i’iwi  are especially vulnerable.  Of course, with climate change raising temperatures, the altitudes that are safe from mosquitoes which carry disease will grow harder to reach and be harsher to live in.  Although the bird faces typical pressures from habitat loss and fragmentation due to the activity of humans and other non-native species, of particular concern are feral pigs, which are prone to wallowing about in the ground.  This creates divots of vegetation and earth which then fill with standing water, making a perfect breeding ground for mosquitos.  

Altitudinal migration as well as an assumed (but not, to my knowledge, observed) ability to fly between islands means that it is difficult to find firm numbers on this bird, but estimates put its numbers around 350,000 tiny, brightly colored individuals.  

Links: https://tinyurl.com/2p2rc39n, https://tinyurl.com/mrn52da4, https://tinyurl.com/5ymszjhf, https://tinyurl.com/2jadmk83