Birds of paradise: Yet another good reason to fly away to the 50th state

“PALILA!” Rob Pacheco cried out in a voice most people reserve for “Hallelujah!” He slammed his giant, teal-colored truck to a halt on a gutted dirt road, 9,000 feet up the slopes of Mauna Kea on Hawaii’s Big Island.

We sprinted through a field of brown grass, Madagascar daisies and small trees. We were looking for the poster child of Hawaiian conservation, a yellow-headed, white-breasted finch that was among the first species covered by the original Endangered Species Act of 1973.

The palila is descended from two North American finches that flew to this archipelago in the middle of the Pacific about 25 million years ago.

“Hawaii’s isolation,” Pacheco explained, “means that only really, really good fliers made it here.”

Over time those first finches evolved into 100 species of Hawaiian honeycreepers.

“Everyone knows about Darwin’s finches from the Galapagos Islands,” he said, his binoculars scanning the treetops. (Observations on the shapes of their beaks helped Darwin formulate his theory of evolution.) “But if you want to study evolutionary processes through a bird species, the Hawaiian honeycreeper is the bird to study. Darwin’s 13 finches pale in comparison,” Pacheco said.

I listened intently to him, even though I wasn’t spotting a single rare feather. It was to learn this kind of obscure fact that I had signed on for a day tour with Pacheco, founder of the eco-tour company Hawaii Forest & Trail, while I was in Waimea for a June horseback riding vacation.

*

Trouble in paradise

WHEN the Hawaiians arrived in the islands sometime after AD 400, they named this evolutionary wonder palila. By then, the bird had settled on the upper slopes of Mauna Kea, where it nested in the mamane tree and feasted on its orange-yellow seeds.

In the early 1800s, Hawaiian chiefs razed forests to sell off once-abundant sandalwood. Europeans and Americans added cats, rats, cattle and mongooses to the dogs and pigs brought by Polynesians, and all wreaked havoc on island ecosystems and native birds. Ranching turned mountain slopes into grazing fields, and pigs, goats and sheep ravaged mamane saplings. The palila lost most of its supply of the tree’s seedpods. Feral cats and rats pillaged their nests.

After the palila was listed as endangered in 1967 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Pacheco said, a group of local residents sued the state of Hawaii on its behalf. In 1978, a federal court told the state to remove all feral goats and sheep from the bird’s habitats.

Pacheco and I were experiencing the effect of the bird’s decimation: The palila he had glimpsed vanished before I saw it, and no others had appeared two hours into our tour. My heart was set on seeing this beleaguered bird, and I tromped back to the truck trying not to feel dejected.

I’m no bird nerd. In my family, bird-watchers are the brunt of dinner table jokes. “Look,” my grandfather was reputed to have said when my grandmother dragged him out bird-watching. “It’s a double-breasted seersucker!”

But, having grown up in Hawaii, I learned from an early age to revere Hawaiian birds and their role in ancient culture. School excursions took us to the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, where docents in flowered muumuus told us dramatic tales while showing us such artifacts as an idol of the war god Kukailimoku which was covered in blood-red feathers. Plumed staffs called kahili stood at attention in the corners. But the most impressive feather work was the capes -- made entirely of red, yellow and black feathers -- that Kamehameha the Great and the king’s other 18th century warriors wore into battle.

Ancient Hawaiians, the docents said, were early ecologists. Trained bird catchers would trap their prey by smearing a sticky paste on tree limbs, plucking a few feathers and releasing the birds to the forest. For the golden cloak of King Kamehameha I, about 450,000 feathers were collected from more than 80,000 mamo birds.

Today, the mamo is extinct. And it isn’t the only one: Twenty-eight percent of the islands’ native birds are extinct and one-third -- 32 altogether -- are listed on the federal threatened and endangered species lists. (Hawaii has been called the extinction capital of the world, with 317 endangered and threatened species of flora and fauna.)

In late 2004, from my perch in Northern California, I read of the death of the last poouli, a timid brown bird with a black bandit’s mask that once climbed tree trunks and ate insects on the upper slopes of Maui’s Haleakala.

“I liken it to the loss of the Mona Lisa or the Sistine Chapel,” said Eric VanderWerf of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s office in Honolulu. “We can never get another one.”

His comment made me resolve to learn more about Hawaii’s endangered birds on my next trip to the islands.

Which is how I ended up at 9 a.m. at the base of Saddle Road, the lone route between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, to meet Pacheco. I happily parked my compact and climbed into his Ford F-350 super-duty off-road vehicle.

We headed uphill through pastures of wheat-like African fountain grass, stopping at Waikii Ranch. Here, at the base of 13,796-foot Mauna Kea, we could see three of the island’s other four volcanoes: To the right was lumpy, emerald Kohala, to the left rose Hualalai, and even farther left were the charcoal lava flows of Mauna Loa.

But this stop wasn’t really meant to indulge my inner geologist. It was meant to train my inner ornithologist. Pacheco had heard a skylark in the field, and as the nonnative bird flapped like crazy, he taught me how to work the $1,500 Brunton Epoch binoculars he had just placed around my neck like a plumeria lei. The sun caught the bird’s tawny-colored coat and made it glow gold.

“That’s all display,” Pacheco said when I commented on his wild flight pattern. “He’s showing off for his girl.”

As we continued up the mountain, the air began to cool and the gentle green savanna was replaced by dry upland forest -- stands of mamane, naio and sandalwood trees cut by swaths of brown scrub.

We engaged in a little “car birding,” driving in a staccato fashion so that Pacheco could point out flowers such as the native Hawaiian poppy as well as introduced birds such as an African silver bill, a Gambel’s quail and countless chukars.

Pacheco, 41, has gray-green eyes, a cherub’s head of curly brown hair and ruddy cheeks made bulbous by various expressions of enthusiasm.

“My family were ranchers and farmers and beekeepers in California,” he told me as we bounced along. “But I was a book nerd. Once, I went out with binoculars and I checked out this big obvious bird. I came home, pulled out the Audubon book and there it was: Plate 1: the American bittern. A whole intellectual connection -- that you could use a book to discover things other people don’t know -- happened right then.”

Pacheco has used his adventure company to indulge his continuing fascination with geology, botany and ornithology. He founded Hawaii Forest & Trail in 1993, and today he and his staff of 33 take 20,000 visitors a year on off-road adventures.

Pacheco spouted the lingo of field academics, but he was equally fluent in Hawaiian natural history and the mellifluous names of native trees such as the naio and such native birds as the elepaio.

In fact, he soon had a chance to show me an elepaio. As we stood in a field looking at a yellow-headed amakihi, Pacheco went darting through the brush. He had spotted a male elepaio, with bright-white and black plumage and a rust breast. As I adjusted my binoculars, the bird took off. Moments later, though, it was back.

Pacheco thought its repeated flight pattern from one spot, across a gulch to another spot, then back, meant that it was bringing food to a nest. We pushed ourselves nearer and soon were watching the mom (which was more rust-colored) and the dad (more active) regurgitating flies and insects into the mouths of babies tucked behind mamane leaves.

I was starting to get this birding thing.

Meanwhile, Pacheco seemed to have forsaken our quest for the palila, launching into a complicated genealogy of races, species and subspecies that I could barely follow. Ornithologists are engaged in a lively debate over the number of species of elepaio in the Hawaiian Islands and whether three separate subspecies live on Mauna Kea and in Kona and Volcano, respectively.

“It’s all very political,” Pacheco concluded.

But the story of Hawaii native birds is ultimately more than just a political battle. The island archipelago, with its legions of endangered birds and plants, is becoming a leader in saving rare fauna and flora.

This point was driven home to me as we continued to drive upward, leaving the palila habitat behind us and finding, at 10,000 feet, a barren moonscape of sienna-colored cinder and basketball-size “lava bombs.” We stopped on an eerie plateau surrounded by cinder cones and wispy clouds.

There were no palila here, in fact, not even a tree. But there was another endangered species: an endemic plant, the Mauna Kea silversword. In the thin, cold air we picked our way to a fenced-in field where silverswords were carefully propagated and tended.

The plant is an artichoke-shaped clump of silky, tin foil-colored spikes that are velvety to the touch. After 50 years or so, it sends up a 5-foot-tall spear that bursts with 1-inch magenta blossoms. Then, having briefly dazzled, it dies.

*

A sighting at last

HEADING back down Mauna Kea, we came to a rugged intersection of dirt roads. There, at 9,300 feet, we reentered the habitat of the 3,600 or so palila that are struggling to go forth and multiply.

We got out of the truck to inspect a sandalwood tree. The tree once grew so thick that the uplands were impenetrable. As I dug my nose into its delicate blossoms, which reminded me of incense, Pacheco hollered, “Palila!”

Peering through his field glasses, he lifted an arm to point to the foliage of a large mamane. Finally, I saw it: a stout, robin-sized bird with a golden yellow crown, perched on a leafy branch and tearing apart a seedpod.

“He’s a fat little thing!” I said, unsure how to express my glee.

“You can spot them because of the awkward way they jump from branch to branch,” Pacheco said, his voice quickening in excitement. “That’s the rarest bird you’re going to see today.”

I was ready to rest on my laurels. But Pacheco, apparently, never does.

“Let’s head back down to the Saddle,” he said, already starting for the truck. “We’ll drive toward Hilo, hike the Puu Oo Trail, and see if we can’t find an iiwi.”

To see some native Hawaiian birds and hear their calls, go to latimes.com/birds.

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Well worth the flight

GETTING THERE:

From LAX, to Kona on the Big Island, United, American and Hawaiian fly nonstop. United, American and American Trans Air have connecting flights (change of plane). Restricted round-trip fares begin at $502.

To Hilo, Hawaiian, United, American and Continental have connecting flights. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $721.

TOURS:

Hawaii Forest & Trail, 74-5035B Queen Kaahumanu Highway, Kailua-Kona, HI 96740; (800) 464-1993, www.hawaii-forest.com. The company runs seven nature/adventure tours showcasing the Big Island’s volcanoes, valleys, wildlife and waterfalls. Prices include midmorning snack, deli lunch, daypacks, bottled water, binoculars, walking sticks, warm wear, and raingear. It has two bird-watching trips. The tour company’s Rain Forest/Dry Forest Birding Adventure ventures into subalpine dry land forest on the west side of Mauna Kea and through the cloud forest on the northeastern slope of Mauna Loa; $165.62 including taxes, for a 12-hour round-trip from Kona. Offered only on weekdays. The tour is easy to moderate for ages 8 and older. The Hakalau Forest Wildlife Birding Adventure is offered by Hawaii Forest & Trail 18 times a year, when permits allow entrance into one of the first National Wildlife Refuges established in the U.S. Hakalau is home to some of the rarest plants and animal species on Earth; $161.46, including taxes, for an 11-hour round-trip from Kona. Rated moderate for ages 12 and older.

TO LEARN MORE:

The Nature Conservancy, Parker Ranch Center, Suite H-140, 67-1185 Mamalahoa Highway, Kamuela; (808) 885-1786, www.nature.org. The conservation nonprofit provides a list of recommended spots for Big Island birding and hiking.

H. Douglass Pratt has written several books about birds in Hawaii, including “Enjoying Birds and Other Wildlife in Hawaii” and “A Pocket Guide to Hawaii’s Birds.”

“Hawaii’s Birds,” a publication of the Hawaii Audubon Society and “Seabirds of Hawaii” by Craig Harrison are two other excellent references.

Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau, 2270 Kalakaua Ave., Suite 801, Honolulu, HI 96815; www.gohawaii.com.

-- Constance Hale