I’m a neophyte birder. I give credit for prescience to former Connecticut Conference Minister the Rev. Dr. Davida Foy Crabtree, who gave me Hawaii’s Birds (Audobon, 1997) as I was moving to Hilo. As I’ve said elsewhere, I began learning about local birds in order to tell stories during worship services. Most of the creatures that I grew up learning and knowing about simply don’t live here. On an island with very few native mammals, I turned to birds as the inspiration and characters for these stories. Many of those stories are archived here.
It was only last year that I began formally recording bird sightings through a service of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology called eBird. In 2025 I completed 43 checklists, attaching photos to twelve of them. I took 1,191 photos and 107 videos that I’d be willing to show somebody else. The sightings covered 45 species on three of the Hawaiian Islands and in Connecticut.
That’s not a lot of species for a serious birder, but that’s a part of living in Hawai’i. It is a lot of photo and video material. As the end of the year approached, I realized that I had more bird material than I could include in my annual “A Year” video. The result is the video above, featuring some of the birds I saw and photographed in 2025.
Some of my favorite photos are, of course, in the video, but here they are in a gallery as well.
The oma’o’s heart was in the right place, mostly. The physical heart was, of course, in the right place in his chest and beating regularly. His emotional and spiritual heart was maybe a little bit off to the side, because while he was thinking a little bit about another living thing, it has to be said that he mostly was thinking about himself.
It was a thinnish koa tree that he chose to protect. Its leaves were pretty thick even if its trunk wasn’t the widest. He liked the flavor of its flowers. There were some other birds that did, too, and he began to chase them away whenever he saw them. “I’m preventing them from over-feeding,” he said to himself. “That way the flowers can bloom and the fruit will grow.”
There were also bugs and caterpillars on the trunk and branches of the tree. Some of those he ate, because an oma’o will eat just about anything. Most of them he ignored. Oma’o might eat anything, but when there’s fruit around, they’ll eat that.
But he also wouldn’t let other birds approach the tree to eat the bugs, either. He chased away ‘apapane and ‘amakihi, ‘alawi and ‘elepaio. He even chased away the hook-beaked ‘akiapola’au after he caught one digging into the tree bark with its short lower beak.
“Stop digging into this tree!” he shrieked. “You’re hurting it!”
“This caterpillar in the bark is hurting it,” said the ‘akiapola’au. “I’m getting it out.”
“Not while I’m around!” shouted the oma’o, and chased the other bird away.
As the days went on, the koa leaves started to turn funny colors and droop. When the oma’o landed on a branch, it didn’t spring back up the way it had. Twigs dried up and fell away. Leaves littered the ground around the base of the trunk.
“That tree is sick,” said an ‘elepaio to the oma’o. “It’s got too many bugs. Let us help!”
“No,” said the oma’o. “You’ll hurt it.”
“Look at all those caterpillar tracks below the bark,” said an ‘akiapola’au. “Let us dig them out. The tree will get better.”
“I’m not letting you anywhere near this tree,” said the oma’o.
Even he had to admit that things weren’t going well. He no longer ate flowers from the tree, because there weren’t any. He visited other trees for fruit. There were plenty of bugs to eat, but when he ate some, there were always more.
When a tree falls in the forest, it does make a noise. The birds hear it. And they cry about it.
The birds heard the oma’o’s tree fall. And they cried.
“Why are you crying?” the oma’o asked an ‘elepaio. “It was my tree, not yours.”
“I’m crying because that tree could have been a place to nest for decades,” said the ‘elepaio. “It would have sheltered my family in the rain,” said an ‘amakihi. “It would have fed my children and my grandchildren,” said an ‘akiapola’au.
Looking around, the oma’o realized that not only had he hurt the tree he’d called his own, he’d hurt all the birds around. Not only that, he’d hurt future generations.
When a tree falls in the forest, the sound of its fall echoes into the future.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories in advance, but I tell them from memory (plus improvisation), so it does not match the text you just read.
As I’ve said before, the ‘amakihi likes to eat lots of different things. I think it’s fair to say that the ‘amakihi likes to eat, and fortunately for the ‘amakihi, it has a wide range to its taste. Nectar is always good, and so are bugs and spiders, caterpillars, tree sap, fruits and berries. It will even eat pollen sometimes, which people with pollen allergies will find truly mysterious and a little uncomfortable.
But there was one ‘amakihi who didn’t eat nectar from ohi’a trees.
If that seems weird to you, it seems weird to me, too. There are a lot of ohi’a trees on the mountain slopes, and they have a lot of flowers. It’s a great food source for ‘amakihi and ‘apapane and ‘akepa and lots of birds up there. They’d happily perch near those flower clusters and merrily feed on the nectar while this one ‘amakihi watched.
He watched, and he felt sorry for them.
“Poor birds,” he told himself, “to be so desperately hungry that they’ll feed on ohi’a. I feel really sorry for them.”
Why, you ask, did he feel sorry for them, eating ohi’a nectar? Well, I’m afraid it’s because one day when he was young, and before he’d actually sampled any ohi’a nectar, he perched near an i’iwi. I’iwi can be kind of mean sometimes, and they will chase ‘amakihi away from a tree they want to feed at. This i’iwi, however, was feeling rather full and didn’t want to get up off his perch and chase this young ‘amakihi away. He decided to try words instead.
“Planning to feed at this tree?” he asked the young ‘amakihi.
“Oh, yes, uncle,” said the ‘amakihi. I’m afraid the i’iwi wasn’t happy to be called “uncle” by an ‘amakihi.
“You should search somewhere else if you want something good,” said the i’iwi. “This is a bad tree.”
“Ohi’a is bad?” said the young ‘amakihi.
“I’m afraid so,” said the i’iwi. “The nectar is sour, except when it’s bitter. When it gets old, it’s really bad. It will keep a bird going, of course, but nobody eats ohi’a nectar until they’re desperate.”
“Really?” said the ‘amakihi.
“Really,” said the i’iwi. “You can trust me. Go find something else you’ll like better. I’m sure it will be better for you, too.”
Misled by the i’iwi, the ‘amakihi avoided ohi’a from that day on. Eventually his mother noticed, and he told her the story.
“So one i’iwi told you this story, and you never checked it with anyone else, or tried ohi’a yourself?” she asked him in surprise, “even when so many other birds eat its nectar every day without signs of complaint?” Put that way, it did sound a little odd.
“Come along, son,” said Mother firmly. “You need to try what you’ve been avoiding, and see what you think yourself.”
Of course he found it delicious, which was a good thing to learn. But he also learned that some birds, and some people out there, will lie to you when it serves them, and sometimes you need to test their stories with the ones who love you and with your own experience, to learn the truth.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories ahead of time, then tell them from memory – well, lack of memory plus improvisation. The video does not match the text you’ve just read.
Photo of an ‘amakihi in the midst of ohi’a blossoms by Eric Anderson.
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