This is Bird Note.

The Akiapola Ow is a bright yellow bird with a black eye mask

found exclusively in the upper elevations on the Big Island of Hawaii.

But its most distinct feature is its totally unique, uneven bill.

The bottom half looks typical, but the top half is skinny and

nearly twice as long, curved downward like a sickle to a sharp point. Like other honey creepers, a

family of birds found only in Hawaii, the endangered Akiapola Owl has evolved a specialized niche in their Hawaiian forest homes.

That funky bill is superbly adapted to drilling into trees for food.

With a foraging style similar to woodpeckers,

Akiapola Ow make holes in trees with the stout lower portion of their bill.

With the upper, more delicate, curved part of their bill, they pry at insects and larvae.

Akiapola Ow parents typically raise only one offspring a year and often stay with their young for up to five

months. Akia pola ow were once abundant, but habitat loss and disease from mosquitoes has taken

a toll on their population. In a race against extinction, people are working to restore habitat and control deadly invasive species

so that Hawaii's rarest birds, like the Akiapola Ow, have a future in their remote island homes.

For Bird Note, I'm Jesse Eden.