Chasiempis sandwichensis
In 3 days ~80% in a week >90%
The Hawaiʻi ʻelepaio (Chasiempis sandwichensis), also Hawaiian ʻelepaio, is a monarch flycatcher found on the Big Island of Hawaii. Until 2010, all three ʻelepaio species, the Kauaʻi ʻelepaio (Chasiempis sclateri), the Oʻahu ʻelepaio (Chasiempis ibidis) and this species were considered conspecific.
The Hawaiʻi ʻelepaio was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the flycatchers in the genus Muscicapa and coined the binomial name Muscicapa sandwichensis. Gmelin based his description on the "sandwich flycatcher" that had been described in 1783 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his book A General Synopsis of Birds. Latham had examined a specimen from the Sandwich Islands (now the Hawaiian Islands) in the collection of the naturalist Joseph Banks. The specimen would have been collected between 17 January and 22 February 1779 near Kealakekua Bay on the island of Hawaii during James Cook's third voyage to the Pacific Ocean. The Hawaiʻi ʻelepaio is now placed in the genus Chasiempis that was introduced in 1847 by the German...
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hawaii Volcanoes National Park | 🇺🇸 United States |
More parks will be added in future updates.
Likely
About 40% of wildlife watchers report a Hawai'i 'Elepaio sighting in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on a given day, based on 375 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 13th most-seen of the 29 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 80%, and over a week to over 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
January–June and August–October
In those months about 40% of wildlife watchers report a Hawai'i 'Elepaio in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on a given day, against about 30% in July and November–December, the lowest months.
Between 10 am and 1 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Hawai'i 'Elepaio sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Only Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, in our data
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is the only park on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Hawai'i 'Elepaio sightings: about 40% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same order: Passeriformes
The closest relatives of the Hawai'i 'Elepaio that you can see in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park (order Passeriformes, Perching Birds) are ʻApapane (over 90%), Warbling White-eye (about 90%) and Hawaii 'Amakihi (about 70%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Hawai'i 'Elepaio is recorded against all the birds logged in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park (375 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
