Nā Manu Nahele

BirdNote®
Memory of the ‘Ō‘ū
Written by Mark Bramhill
 
Mark Bramhill: This is BirdNote.  

Like many native Hawaiian birds, the ‘Ō‘ū is presumed to be extinct. It was a stout, secretive yellow-and-green honeycreeper, seen for the last time in the late ’80s.

Sam ‘Ohu Gon was one of the last people to see an ‘Ō‘ū. He’s worked at The Nature Conservancy of Hawai‘i for nearly 40 years. And back in 1988, he took part in an Audubon Christmas Bird Count, hoping to encounter some of the critically endangered native birds.

Sam ʻOhu Gon: And my team and I had been listening and training ourselves, via tape recordings of various birds of that region to identify the calls of all of the endemic forest birds known from that place.  

     [Clips of Palila and ‘Ō‘ū are played, sounding like through a tape recorder]


Mark Bramhill: And so Sam and his group are dropped off deep in the native forests on the island of Hawai‘i.  

Sam ʻOhu Gon: I remember that day was a miserable, wet and cold day at elevations above 4,000 feet. And every 50 meters we would stop and listen for a certain amount of time, observe whatever birds, write them down. And I remember deep in the Hapu‘u, the native tree fern, section of that forest, and the Hapu‘u so thick there. And the fronds are very solid. You know, if they’re really dry, you can break through them. But they’re criss-crossing from all of the tree ferns growing in such density, and you’re trying to push through those old fronds that haven’t gotten soft enough yet. We were getting exhausted, and, uh, your senses tend to dull, um, when you’re miserable and cold and wet and exhausted in the middle of nowhere. And yet, we were stopped at one of those stations, and we heard that call…

     [‘Ō‘ū singing]

Sam ʻOhu Gon: …and we looked at each other, and could hardly believe it, right? Did you hear that? You, you think that’s what we, what we heard. And, uh, we heard a call several times and then it was right above us. So we looked, took our binoculars up, but it was a tall forest and was drizzly and gray. And we were lucky enough to see a ghostly silhouette in the gray drizzle of an ‘Ō‘ū’s butt, essentially.  

     [‘Ō‘ū singing]

Sam ʻOhu Gon: We noted our location and on our return, we went to the lead ornithologist and asked to listen to the calls of the birds. And we told him, don’t tell us which birds we’re listening to. Just play the bird songs. And when we heard the call of the ‘Ō‘ū, we looked at each other, we asked him to stop. And we said, that’s exactly what we heard.  

That was the first time and the last time that I had ever heard ‘Ō‘ū. It was a very hopeful feeling, but unfortunately, that was the last year that they were ever heard.

Mark Bramhill: The sense of loss feels personal to Sam—but he also feels a sense of honor in carrying the bird’s memory.  

Sam ʻOhu Gon: To have seen plants and birds and animals that are just not to be seen, in common existence. That is a great privilege to me. I was so fortunate to be able to do that.


Mark Bramhill: The ‘Ō‘ū lives on, in stories, as the vibrant green in traditional Hawaiian featherwork. And people like Sam are working to ensure the remaining species, like the ‘I‘iwi, the ‘Apapane, and the Palila, stay with us.

     [‘Ō‘ū singing]
 
For BirdNote, I’m Mark Bramhill.

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