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The Kona Grosbeak
Remembering One of Hawaii’s
Extinct Birds
by Les Drent
The Kona Grosbeak |
Already rare when Wilson visited Hawaii, the Kona grosbeak
was found at elevations of about 5,000 feet in the Kona
district amid the koa forest. In 1887 Wilson was one
of the last to observe the bird in life, for it was
last reliably sighted in 1894. He saw only three specimens
in a four-week stay, and so rare was the bird that it
apparently had no name in the Hawaiian language.
The bulk of Wilson’s report on the Kona grosbeak
(also known as the Kona finch or grosbeak finch) is
an excerpt from Robert Perkin’s rather disapproving
notes, published in The Ibis in 1893:
The Chloridops kona (Kona grosbeak), though an interesting
bird on account of its peculiar structure, is a singularly
uninteresting one in its habits. It is a dull, sluggish,
solitary bird and very silent-its whole existence may
be summed up in the words “to eat.” Its food
consists of the seeds of the fruit of the aaka (bastard
sandal-tree, and probably in other seasons of those
of the sandalwood tree), and as these are very minute,
its whole time seems to be taken up in cracking the
extremely hard shells of this fruit, for which its extraordinarily
powerful beak and heavy head have been developed. I
think there must have been hundreds of the small white
kernels in those that I examined. The incessant cracking
of the fruits when one of these birds is feeding, the
noise of which can be heard for a considerable distance,
renders the bird much easier to see than it otherwise
would be. It is mostly found on the roughest lava, but
also wanders into the open spaces in the forest. I never
heard it sing (once mistook the young Rhodocanthis’
-greater koa finch song for that of Chloridops), but
my boy informed me that he had heard it once, and its
song was not like that of Rhodocanthis. Only once did
I see it display any real activity, when a male and
female were in active pursuit of one another amongst
the sandal-trees. Its beak is nearly always very dirty,
with a brown substance adherent to it, which must be
derived from the sandal-tree.
The bastard sandal-tree referred to here is more commonly
known today as the naio tree (Myoporum sandwicense),
which grows primarily on medium-aged lava flows.
In his illustration Frohawk has accurately depicted
the Kona grosbeak sitting on a branch of the naio tree;
the small fruit is also shown. The nondescript olive-green
colors are well rendered, as is the heavy beak; the
gender is unspecified. Somehow this bird appears disgruntled,
as if it knows that extinction lies ahead for its species.
Make room for nature... KEEP KONA COUNTRY!
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Story appeared originally in Coffee Times print magazine and appears online for archival purposes only. Any use or reprinting of these stories without the expressed written consent of the author is prohibited.
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