It’s early August 2025. Deep in the rainforests of Upolu, on the island of Samoa, Moeumu “Moe” Uili and I have paused our hike, counting the seconds between coo calls from an unseen pigeon hidden in the dense canopy. Moe mutters, “Nah, the intervals between the calls are too irregular. That’s got to be a lupe,” referring to the much more common Pacific imperial pigeon (Ducula pacifica).
“Are you still using the number of coo calls per sequence to distinguish lupe from manumea?” I ask per the latter bird and the object of our search: the tooth-billed pigeon (Didunculus strigirostris), also called “the little dodo.”
