I don't know why there were never any Amakihi around the cabin here in the golf course neighborhood of Volcano, Hawaii. But there weren't. When I was younger, I may simply not have recognized their little calls and songs. But once I became a bird point counter, I would have known their sounds in an instant. I specifically remember often thinking about how I never heard Amakihi around the cabin. This was odd to me, especially after coming back from being in the field at Mauna Kea or Hakalau, where HAAMs (Hawaii Amakihi) are so abundant. Amakihi are also one of the few species of Hawaii's honeycreepers that seem to be making a comeback at low elevations, where diseases like avian malaria keep the native birds away or at least from becoming very abundant. Amakihi, though, are thriving at low elevation forests here on the Big Island. So it was doubly odd that I never heard them here at home, and only so rarely around Volcano village that it was a special sound there.
So this past month when I heard a familiar little squeak, my head snapped up from the article I was reading. I knew it was a HAAMie, but I didn't see it anywhere. I figured he was just passing through. But I began hearing that little voice more often, but soon I heard a HAAM song, that distinctive series of peeps that sounds like a squeaky wheel or a squeaky sewing machine. Then I saw them in the Koai'a tree outside. A female, then an adult male, both green as the leaves, but the male with a robber's black mask across his eyes.
Perhaps they're now here because the trees on the land behind the cabin are getting a bit bigger, as succession progresses. Or maybe they're re-populating this area after being extirpated from some human-caused factor. Whatever the reason, there are at least two around, and I've heard more on my bike rides. Welcome back little Amakihi!