Hawaiʻi Creeper (Loxops mana) — Vorstman's Guide to the Birds of North America

Voice

The male's song is a descending trill of about a second, usually repeated several times in succession and weaker in volume than the song of the Hawaiʻi ʻAmakihi. The call is a soft, short chip or tseet, sounding almost continuously within mixed flocks. Outside the breeding season the voice is the most reliable clue, since the bird stays in the canopy and moves without drawing attention.

Listen: CallXC127667

Recording: Brooks Rownd — CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 · Station 11-27, below Nauhi Experiment Station, Honohina Tract, Hakalau Forest NWR, Hawaii County, Hawaii, United States · xeno-canto

Identification

Eleven to thirteen centimetres, slightly larger than the Hawaiʻi ʻAkepa. Green above, yellowish below, with a grey head and throat and a black mask running from the base of the bill across the eye and ending in a point behind it; the mask is broader on the male. The bill is short and tapered, slightly curved — straighter than an ʻamakihi's, but clearly longer than an ʻakepa's. The bird climbs along the trunk and often hangs beneath a branch.

Confusion species

The Hawaiʻi ʻAmakihi has a narrower, less sharply edged mask, a longer and more strongly curved bill, and feeds among leaves and flowers rather than on bark. The Hawaiʻi ʻAkepa is smaller, with a minute bill and a longer notched tail, and the male is orange. The Warbling White-eye has a white eye-ring and lacks the black mask. Trunk-climbing is the quickest separation from all three.

Habitat

Old, closed montane forest of koa (Acacia koa, a native Hawaiian tree) and ohia, mainly between roughly one thousand and two thousand metres and most numerous above fifteen hundred. The species needs trees with rough bark carrying moss and lichen; young or open forest yields far less food. Outside the breeding season, from late summer into winter, it joins mixed flocks with ʻamakihi and ʻakepa. Insects and spiders are the main food, with nectar from koa and ohia in addition.

Where the bird is most often found, arranged by the USNVC — the vegetation classification of the United States and Canada — and CMECS for sea and coast.

Range and movements

Confined to the island of Hawaii, in three separate core areas: the Hamakua slopes with Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge, the high forests of Kaʻu, and the north slope of Hualalai, where the species may now be gone. The total population has been put at about twelve thousand birds. At Hakalau numbers over 1987–2024 were on the whole stable to increasing, while they fell in the densest forest stratum.

Resident

A map of the archipelago itself: on the map of North America this bird would be a speck in the bottom left, and with island birds the question is exactly which islands it holds. The islands where it is absent are shown in grey. Measured island by island from the records held by GBIF: the records of the species divided by all bird records there, season by season, just as on the ordinary map. On Niihau and Kahoolawe so little birding is done that the measurement is silent and the standard references decide. Island outlines: Natural Earth (public domain).

Where and when to look

Hakalau Forest Refuge offers the best chance, but the public section is reached only by a rough mountain road; day trips with a permitted guide also go there. Look in the morning, before the cloud closes in, and put your binoculars on trunks and heavy limbs rather than on flowering crowns — that is where the difference from the ʻamakihi lies.

Conservation

The species is listed as Endangered (EN) and has held federal protection since 1975. Avian malaria and avian pox are the main pressure, with rat predation and damage to the forest by cattle and pigs alongside. At Hakalau, fencing, removal of hoofed animals and koa replanting have held numbers up, which sets this species apart from the ʻakepa in the same refuge. The upward shift of the mosquito season is the longer-term problem.

Scientific name

Loxops mana | (Wilson, 1891)

Scott Barchard Wilson described the species in 1891 as Himatione mana; because it was later moved to another genus, author and year stand in parentheses. The genus Loxops was introduced in 1847 by Jean Cabanis, from Greek loxos 'slanting' and ops 'face', after the sideways-crossed bill tips of the group. The species name mana is a Hawaiian word that Wilson took over. The English name refers to the climbing along trunks; since 2017 the Hawaiian name ʻalawi has also been in use.