Pueo, bird collections and the Bishop Museum

Today we visited the bird collections of the Bishop Museum. They have a great number of interesting species (including the extinct Hawaiian honey-creepers!), but mostly important to us, they have several Pueo specimens (some of them more than 100 years old).

So we tested our bird ID skills, especially sexing and ageing, and now we are ready to identify any Pueo that we might encounter!

Here one secret insider... the most important clue to age them is the central tail feathers, and to age them (once they have made their first complete moult), the number of bars on the outer tail feather!

We spent a great morning there, and I'm especially thankful to Molly Hagemman (the collections manager) for her help towards our Pueo project!