Io Lani – The Hawaiian Hawk

Book by W.S. Chillingworth of Waimea – Author & Photographer

80 pages, 50 color illustrations – soft back

Published in 2014 by University of Hawaii Press – Very few still available. 

Recipient of a Ka Palapala Po'okela Award of Excellence from Hawaii Book Publishers Association.

The simplicity of this beautiful little book with its stunning pictures of ‘Io – the Hawaiian Hawk - belies its fascinating beginning with a “ho’ailona” – what Hawaiians believe to be a sign, signal or omen.  One day some years back, well regarded Waimea Judge William Seymour Chillingworth was out walking and an ‘io “presented itself” to him and he captured the moment on film.  And this kept happening. 

What Judge Chillingworth – whose looks do not reveal his Hawaiian ancestry - didn’t know then was that his maternal native ancestors lived and worked as bird collectors and feather cape makers in the eighteenth and nineteenth century along the windward coast of Hawaii island.   Unfortunately, his family had almost no information about this, but the manner in which ‘io began calling to him and approaching him – ultimately to be photographed - became his pathway back to reconnect with this ancestral legacy. 

And it inspired this book.    

The ‘io, the Hawaiian Hawk – is a symbol of Hawaiian royalty—indomitable, swift, strong, and fierce.  The bird, Buteo solitarius, is believed to have arrived in Hawaii after being blown from their customary migratory route between North and South America.  This was well before the first human voyagers discovered the Islands over a thousand years ago. Although there are occasional vagrants (osprey, sea eagles, and peregrines), the Hawaiian hawk remains the only diurnal raptor found on the islands of the Pacific.  Once present on Oahu, Kauai and Molokai, as well as Hawaii Island, Buteo solitarius is now a threatened species and found only on Hawaii Island.  Its population is estimated to be less than 3,000 birds.

Chillingworth’s photographs are evidence of his deep reverence for the bird and have become a valuable contribution to the study of this rare native. The photographs remind us of our kinship with wild creatures, many of them clinging to an increasingly precarious existence, as well as of our responsibility to preserve and protect them.

Together with accompanying essays by John L. Culliney and Nathan Napoka that are equally scholarly and poetic, the images give an illuminating sense of the ‘io in its island refuge.  Despite the inevitable encroachment of the modern world, the Hawaiian hawk has managed to survive, a reminder of a not-so-distant past of chiefly kingdoms and isolated volcanic archipelagoes. Mindful of Hawaii's unfortunate distinction as the extinction capital of the avian world, this book encourages and inspires us to protect and ensure this singular creature's survival.

Accompanying the essays is a priceless foreword by writer and cultural representative and practitioner Hannah Springer.