Monk seals often come ashore during the day to rest.
I was down at Punalu’u Black Sand Beach Park with my brother, and we were watching a turtle resting on the beach, in an area enclosed by a low rock wall. I told him that most turtles hauled out here, but they sometimes came ashore on other parts of the beach, and I pointed to a dark lump, surrounded by cones, some distance away.
Looking at it, I thought, that’s a big turtle! So I zoomed in with my camera and saw it was actually a monk seal. We hot-footed around and I took these photos, which I later sent in to the Marine Mammal Center, which keeps track of monk seals.
This monk seal looked in good condition, with no visible wounds. The green around the face and flippers is algae and is an indication the seal might molt soon, which they do annually.
They responded to let me know the seal was ‘Imikai, a daughter of RB00, who is also the mother of the last seal I saw (here). ‘Imikai was born on Lānaʻi in 2018 and has had two pups of her own. Apparently, she came to the Big Island in 2023 and has been seen mostly around the southern parts of the island.
Tags in the tail flippers are used to identify the monk seals.
I saw this beetle on a tree I was cutting up. It was shiny, which always gets my attention. It’s a metallic wood-boring beetle, and this one is relatively plain compared to some of its more flamboyant relatives.
Visiting Kailua Kona, it’s never hard to know if a cruise ship is in. They invariably are the largest thing in view, dwarfing any and all of the downtown buildings. On a recent visit, I got this photo from the Walmart parking lot (a solid contender for the Walmart with the best view in the world!).
It used to be that Wednesday was cruise ship day, but currently there are three or four ships a week stopping by. This one is the Europa 2, which is operated by Hapag-Lloyd Cruises. It carries up to 516 passengers, which means it is less crowded than most cruise ships.
Strong winds whip up whitecaps in Kawaihae harbor.
The idea of The Numbers Game is to enter a number into the search bar of your computer and then post a selection of the photos that turn up. This week’s number is 139. Captions are on the photos.
A Black-crowned Night Heron snaffles a Tilapia. Original post here.Bees and their honeycomb inside the wall of a house. Original story here.The firehose of lava at Kilauea Volcano in 2017.Hawaiian Stilts in flight.There’s always one who’s got to get your attention, as evidenced by these Northern Pintails.
Halemaʻumaʻu crater sits within the larger Kilauea calera.
Jagger Museum sits on the center of the ridge above Halemaʻumaʻu crater. This view gives an idea of the scale.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Earth Day.’ See more responses here.
My brother has been visiting from England and, a few days ago, we went down to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park to check out the scene. The volcano’s last eruption ended in September 2023, and it’s been mostly quiet since then.
We arrived to find the volcano socked in with clouds, but the next morning the skies had lifted and we got some great views. We started at Uēkahuna, a viewing area next door to the Jaggar Museum. The viewing area used to be at the museum, but that was badly damaged during Kilauea’s 2018 eruption and is currently in the process of being removed.
Halemaʻumaʻu crater is a pit crater within the larger Kilauea caldera. By the end of that 2018 eruption, the crater floor had collapsed into a deep pit. A small lake formed at the bottom, but that was boiled away and covered in the next eruption. Subsequent eruptions have continued this process of filling the collapsed pit. I hadn’t been down to view this area for quite a while and I was surprised at how much had been filled in. The whole floor was easily visible from the many viewpoints around the caldera, and while there’s no active lava to be seen, there’s plenty of steam rising.
Volcanic cones, from the last eruption, on the floor of the crater.
Steam rises from cracks in the walls of Halemaʻumaʻu crater.
Ironically, yesterday I got an email from the U.S. Geological Survey announcing that ‘Increased seismicity over the past three weeks, indicates heightened activity. Updates will be provided daily while at a heightened state of unrest.’ In other words, watch this space!
For more information about Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, go to nps.gov/havo/.
A view of Halemaʻumaʻu crater. On the left, the flat area with a white line on it, is a section of Crater Rim Drive that slid, intact, into the crater!
Graham's Island 