The Hawaii Forest Bird Survey (HFBS) systematically characterized plant and bird communities across transects spanning all major Hawaiian Islands except O‘ahu. This extensive dataset has now been organized into a database and associated geographic information system (GIS) layers. This baseline provides an opportunity to assess how forest ecosystems and their constituent bird and plant populations have changed over time. As part of the HaBiTATS (Hawaiian Biodiversity Trends Across Time and Space) project, a select area on Hawai‘i Island was surveyed in 2015 with the objective of demonstrating the potential of using the HFBS methodology to reassess the status of bird and plant communities across multiple geographic regions and islands. The results of the comparative study presented herein highlight examples of the apparent vulnerability and resiliency of native-dominated Hawaiian ecosystems. Specific study objectives were to: (1) collect information on plant and bird species community composition, abundance, and spatial distribution following the original HFBS methodology; (2) assess changes in several biodiversity metrics; (3) examine changes in the distribution of invasive non-native species as well as changes in land use as potential drivers of native biodiversity patterns, and (4) demonstrate field and data analysis methods that may be applied to a large-scale biodiversity monitoring program. This is the vegetation species dataset from 1977.