Native bird photos at Haleakala crater. Sept. 18, 2010

Today I went up to Haleakala to get photos of one of my favorite endemic birds the I'iwi! And I was joined by my friend Cecilia Fernández who owns
'iwi design notice banner on right side of page.

We had a great day of shooting even though there were not too many birds
around. We did find an Ohia tree that had lots of Lehua flowers on it, and the native birds, I'iwi, Apapane, Amakihi and the rare Akohekohe love to drink nector from them.

The I'iwi is one of the birds that provided red feathers in the making of the Hawaiian cloaks, capes, and helmets.
The Hawaiian alii (chiefs) wore beautiful capes and headdresses crafted by weaving in thousands of tiny feathers. The Kanaka kahea manu, the bird-catcher, would imitate bird-calls to attract the birds to catch them by placing the sticky sap from the Ulu (bread fruit) tree on the branches that the birds would land on, pluck out a small number of tiny feathers and let them go.

Aloha!
Clicking on the pictures will take you to the galleies that they are at.