Common waxbills are among the tiniest birds in the islands. They measure around four inches and weigh up to nine grams. If you look close enough, you can see fine black bars on their brown plumage. But their most distinctive feature is their bright red eye mask.
Like the yellow-fronted canary, the common waxbill is native to sub-Saharan African and was brought to Hawai'i as a decorative cage bird in the 1970s. These little finches have since made their home across the islands in grassy lowlands.
Manu Minute, Common waxbill Spectrogram video.mp4
Audio credit: Peter Boesman/Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (ML279010)
