I write researched explainers about space, extinct species, and old technology. Every claim is traced to a primary source before it ships, and the sources are listed in the piece. When something can't be verified, I say so instead of smoothing it over.
Cornell's sound archive holds a 1975 recording of two Kauaʻi ʻōʻōs singing together. The recordist's notes mark it: "4:18 — DUET."
Twelve years later, the last one was recorded alone.
The Kauaʻi ʻōʻō lived only on Kauaʻi: small, black, the last of four Hawaiian ʻōʻō. Its song was a duet, two birds answering each other. One bird alone is half a song.
The last female is thought to have died in Hurricane Iwa, November 1982, which passed within 25 miles of Kauaʻi and took the old nesting trees. A male was last seen in 1985; David Boynton recorded the final known tape in late 1987.
From "Half a Duet" — built from the Macaulay Library archive and the recordists' own field notes.
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