BirdNote; Kipukas and Akis

BirdNote®

Kipukas and 'Akis

Written by Bob Sundstrom

This is BirdNote.

['Akiapola’au song]

You’re hearing the song of one of Hawaii’s rarest forest birds, the ‘Akiapola’au. [‘Akiapola’au song] This male ‘Akiapola’au – or 'Aki for short – is singing in an isolated grove of trees on the slopes of an active volcano.

In Hawaii, such groves are known as kipukas. A kipuka is an island of native forest surrounded not by water but by recent lava flows. Kipukas are green oases in a sea of black lava. They’re critical areas of native habitat -- home to species found nowhere else on the planet.

The 'Aki possesses what one observer has called a “Swiss Army knife” bill. Its short, straight lower beak is paired with a long, slender, curved, and flexible upper beak. As it forages up and down tree trunks and across the branches, the short half hammers like a woodpecker’s bill, and the upper probes for insects under the bark and lichen.

['Akiapola’au song]

[The species is found only on the Big Island of Hawaii.] Some of the roughly 1,000 'Akis left on earth live and breed in kipukas on the lower slopes of Mauna Loa, Hawaii’s largest active volcano.

[Rumbling volcano]

In living with a rumbling volcano, 'Aki and kipuka perform one of nature’s most remarkable balancing acts.

[Rumbling volcano and 'Aki]

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Song of 'Akiapola’au provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York, recorded by T.K. Pratt.

BirdNote's theme music was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and produced by John Kessler.

Producer: John Kessler

Executive Producer: Chris Peterson

© 2015 Tune In to Nature.org June 2017 Narrator: Michael Stein

ID# kipuka-01-2012-06-30