The Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project had a busy field season this year. To complement our permanent staff, we hired six additional technicians starting in February. Devon Anderson, Richard Aracil, and Charissa Rujanavech made up the Po'ouli Camp team and Jenny Hazelhurst, Ehren Banfield, and Adam Elzinga made up the Frisbee Meadows team. They worked alongside MFBRP staff until June recording data on the Maui Parrotbill and their productivity.

At Po'ouli Camp, the team put in about 200 person days of effort, which came out to 840 hours of bird research, covering about 260 km. At Frisbee Meadows, 247 person days were put into the season, totaling 1366 hours and covering 325 km. Technicians spent their days resighting Maui Alauahio and Maui Parrotbill. Of banded individuals, 59 Alauahio and 17 Parrotbill were seen at Po'ouli Camp, and 5 Akohekohe, 93 Alauahio and 13 Parrotbill were located at Frisbee Meadows.

The weather was fairly moderate over the entire season with the temperature low being in the 40s and highs getting up to the 60s and even the 70s in June. Rainfall for the season was 115 inches over the five month period.

In addition to searching for Maui Parrotbill, the teams did variable circular point (VCP) counts for all bird species and 500 meter transects counts for Parrotbill, Alauahio and Akohekohe. These allow us to get relative number estimates of the birds. The teams got together at the end of the season to determine productivity at their respective sites. Po'ouli Camp found 9 Parrotbill pairs, of which 5 had fledglings this season. Frisbee Meadows had 18 Parrotbill pairs, of which 6 had fledglings. At the end of the season, one nest was still active with a hatchling being fed by the female.

Starting in June we also had an intern, Tawny Neal join MFBRP. Her main task was to sort fecal samples that MFBRP has gotten over the past few years, searching for arthropod pieces to later be identified in Parrotbill and Alauahio diet analyses. In July, three volunteers also joined MFBRP: Elizabeth Burris, Jesse Agee, and Lidia D'Amico. These four assisted MFBRP staff in banding operations at both Po'ouli Camp and Frisbee Meadows. At Po'ouli, a Melodious Laughing Thrush was caught for the first time. This may be indicative of invasive birds becoming more numerous in higher elevation forests and will be interesting to monitor in the coming years.

While the Parrotbill eluded us during our first July banding trip, the team was able to catch a Maui Parrotbill at Frisbee Meadows during our second field trip. It was an unbanded male of one of the pairs that the team had been watching all season. Unfortunately, this pair did not have a hatch-year this year, but we may be able to watch this pair more closely the next year now that the male has bands.

We'd like to thank our entire field team of the 2010 season: technicians, volunteers, and interns. It was a great year and the help that these people put in will allow MFBRP to continue working to recover Maui's native forest birds! Mahalo!