Pu'u O'oTrail, Hawaii
The 'Akiapola'au, or Aki for short, is another of the highly endangered honeycreepers of Hawaii, and a very special bird. The Aki has evolved to occupy the woodpecker niche, and as you can see has a very unique and interesting bill. The lower half of the bill is used as a pecking and crushing tool, while the top half can be used as a prying tool to peel back bark and to probe. The bill is flexible and the Aki can actually use the bill as pincers and can pull the tips of both halves of the bill together.
We first saw this very cool bird while at the Hakalau Reserve, with our guide Jack Jeffrey. The two Aki that we saw and photographed there were pretty high up in the trees and very backlit. Jack suggested that we might find an Aki in one of the Kipuka along the Pu'u O'o Trail, and indeed we did find one there, on much shorter Koa trees, on our third try.
I had to crop these pretty tight because the shots were tricky ones through a dense stand of small trees.
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