Author Archives: Graham

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About Graham

I take photos when I'm out and about, recording life on the Big Island of Hawaii.

It’s a home to us

Little fish and floating debris in the waters off Hawaii

Floating marine debris can be a menace to ocean wildlife, being swallowed by, or wrapping around everything from fish to turtles to whales. But it can also be repurposed by little fish into a relatively safe haven for them as they negotiate those dangerous early days of life.

Here, a variety of small sergeant fishes have found some cover under a clump of line.

Posted for Becky’s Squares: Move Forward, Reconstruct, Renew, and/or are Burgeoning. See more responses here.

Safety first…and last

A safety sticker on a car in Hawaii

May sees the welcome return of Becky’s Squares. This month’s theme is Move Forward, Reconstruct, Renew, and/or are Burgeoning (see more responses here). I couldn’t resist starting with this one, if only for the headline.

Vehicles in Hawaii are required to pass a safety inspection every year. This sticker is put on when the vehicle passes and also indicates when it will need to be renewed. This one is good for another eight months.

Also posted for Bushboy’s Last on the Card. See more responses here.

The Numbers Game #19

A Helicopter taking off from a ranch on Kohala Mountain, Hawaii
The photo number isn’t 140, but this still works. Watch out for that tub!
A Striped Lynx spider in Hawaii
An itsy bitsy, teeny weeny Striped Lynx Spider.

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 140. Captions are on the photos.

You can see more responses here.

An endangered Palila, a bird found only on the Big Island, Hawaii.
Rainbow off North Kohala
Rainbow over North Kohala.
Little fish and Padina japonica seaweed in a tide pool in Hawaii
Little fish and Padina japonica seaweed in a tide pool.
A fireweed control moth (Secusio extensa).
A Sunrise over Kohala Mountains Hawaii
Sunrise over North Kohala.

Queen’s Wreath

Queens Wreath flowers in Hawaii

Queen’s Wreath (Petrea volubilis) is also known as Purple Wreath and Sandpaper Vine. It’s a native of tropical America, though not Hawaii. The plant can take the form of a vine or shrub. This one was more of a shrub. The blooms are prolific and can occur twice a year.

Queens Wreath flowers in Hawaii

Monk seal on a black sand beach

A Hawaiian monk seal on the beach at Punuluu Beach Park, Hawaii
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.

A Hawaiian monk seal on the beach at Punuluu Beach Park, Hawaii
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.

A Hawaiian monk seal on the beach at Punuluu Beach Park, Hawaii
Tags in the tail flippers are used to identify the monk seals.