ML594801471

Age and sex

Juvenile, Unknown sex - 1

Observation details

By far my best Oahu Elepaio experience, ever. I encountered this bird about 2.5 miles into the trail at 21.4418 -157.9109, roughly where we stopped before turning around. I first saw a reddish-brown bird fly into a patch of strawberry guava lining the trail and called it an Apapane. Foraging on an understory plant like strawberry guava seemed to be odd for Apapane, but elepaio are not expected here, and the colors seemed to match an immature Apapane. To my surprise, a little juvenile Oahu Elepaio then casually appeared in the patch. I had just tried to pish out a Japanese Bush Warbler that was calling nearby, so perhaps this bird was drawn in to that noise. It hopped around closely, investigating us. At one point, it flew just over our heads, and we could clearly hear its wingbeats. The encounter ended when the elepaio went back into the strawberry guava. This was a small passerine with a big head, at least relative to its body. It was generally brown above and white below; the wings and tail were a few shades darker than the rest of the upperparts. The head was washed in a warm, orange brown color, and a few indistinct, low-contrast, dark markings were present below the eye. The eye-ring and wing-bars were a buffy color, and the basal half of the short bill was orange. Fun to encounter one in a mostly native habitat! This small patch of strawberry guava was surrounded by Koa and Ohia, with an Uluhe fern groundcover. This appears to be a first for the Manana Ridge Trail, at least according to eBird. I'm not sure of what the current range of Koolau Elepaio is, but Manana Ridge does seem to be new. Other nearby elepaio records come from the Waimano trail. Perhaps elepaio are re-expanding into the portion of the Koolaus above Pearl City?

Technical information

Model

COOLPIX P1000

ISO

400

Focal length

62.1 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/7.1

Shutter speed

1/320 sec

Dimensions

4008 pixels x 3006 pixels

Original file size

6.94 MB