With their long down-curved beak, these little red birds drink nectar from flowers. Drink up, little bird. Get your vitamins. Over the last 200 years, more bird species have become extinct in Hawai'i than anywhere else in the world. Blame egg-eating mongooses.
Blame mosquitoes carrying avian malaria.
The Alaka'i has so far remained immune to both scourges. Kaua'i is the one Hawaiian island that has kept mongooses out. Lewie, Annabelle and I found a little dry mound and sat down for a snack of poi and dried bananas. The swamp plants around us looked like transplants from Venus. Purple tendrils crept up lichen-covered trees.