The ʻAkiapolaʻau Honey Creeper
Hemignathus wilsoni
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The ʻakiapōlāʻau, pronounced ah-kee-ah-POH-LAH-OW, is a species of Hawaiian honeycreeper, that is endemic to the island of Hawaii. This bird prefers the dry mountain forest. The bird is around 5.5 inches and has a odd shaped beak.The ʻakiapolaʻau is a pudgy bird which has a whitish bottom and tail, black legs, yellow chest, orangish head, black face mask and bill and gray black wings. This birds conservation status is endangered. The population is being killed off by rats that eat the eggs, and diseased ridden mosquitoes limit have limited its elevation of 4,300 to 6,900 feet. Before it lived on Mauna Kea in elevations 6,200 to 9,500 ft, but they died out in 2002,but the remaining population lives on lower levels only on the Big island. This bird eats bugs on tree branches and uses its weird bill to sip nectar from the mountain flowers. This bird eats grubs from tree bark, and and uses its thick lower bill to crush its prey.
The akiapola’au breeds only once a year and lays one egg. This bird is a slow reproducer.The largest population contains about 1,097 birds, deforestation, invasive species, and slow reproduction time cause the little birds population to dwindle.