This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Towering.’ See more responses here.
Up near the top of Kohala Mountain is this array of towers. They sit in the middle of pastureland, surrounded by cattle and horses. The one with the large white ball on top is NEXRAD, the Next Generation Weather Radar, which provides current time information showing where clouds and rain are moving through the area. It’s also a navigation aid to local pilots who refer to it as the golfball.
The cattle don’t have access to the information from the golfball, but they know that when they’re wet, it’s raining, and when they’re dry, it’s not, and really that’s all anyone needs to know.
A whitetip reef shark passes below looking, I think, for a quiet place to get some rest.
A fourspot butterflyfish swims by a patch of cauliflower coral, some living, some dead. There are two spots on each side, but this fish was very small so the second spot was still filling in as space allowed.
A blue goatfish cruises by.
A green linckia sea star and lobster molt. Most green linckia have five arms but can have four or six. They’re able to reproduce by detaching an arm which will eventually develop into a new star.
This week’s Friendly Friday challenge theme is ‘Morning Rituals.’ See more responses here.
Most mornings, I try to get in the water, as conditions and schedules allow. Morning is the best time for snorkeling as the water is usually calmer before the wind picks up as the day wears on. Visibility can vary from day to day and it can help to check surf reports to see if there are any swells moving in. But calm water doesn’t guarantee good visibility just as swells don’t always mean bad visibility. There’s only one way to be sure and that’s to jump in.
My favorite thing about snorkeling is that every day is different and I never know what I’ll see. Going to the same spot means I become familiar with some of the regulars, but there are always transient creatures passing through including rays and dolphins. And while those big creatures are great to encounter, it’s equally interesting to watch the activities of smaller fish and marine invertebrates.
It’s a rare day indeed that I don’t emerge prattling on about something I saw while I was in the water. And on those rare days, well, I’ve still had a good swim to set me up for the day ahead.
It wasn’t until I processed this photo of a goldring surgeonfish that I noticed the stocky hawkfish resting motionless below it.
Argemone glauca is an endemic plant, known in Hawaii as Pua Kala or Hawaiian Prickly Poppy. It favors the hot, dry, and sunny conditions on the west side of the island and can grow anywhere from the coast, where these were, all the way up to subalpine areas of the volcanoes.
The Halemaumau Trail in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park takes hikers from near the visitor center down to the floor of the summit crater of Kilauea Volcano. It mostly passes through trees and some lush tropical foliage, this being the wet side of the island. Part of the way down the trail eases through a channel between two walls of rock, which are covered in moss. It’s a quite beautiful passage and, in this harsh volcanic area, has a remarkably soft feeling to it.
For more information about Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, go to nps.gov/havo/.
The Hawi Wind Farm often shares its grounds with cattle or horses. It’s open pasture with no trees and on this day, a clump of cattle had wedged themselves into the narrow band of shade cast by one of the turbines.
Tibouchina urvilleana hails from Brazil and is also known as purple glory bush and princess flower. Its flowers have striking deep blue to purple petals, which contrast nicely with dark pink sepals. Here on the Big Island, it’s a bit of a problem because of it’s dense growth habit which can crowd out other plants.
One day, while I was in the water, I ran into a couple of snorkelers who were watching this creature. It was high up in fairly deep water in the middle of the bay. It looked almost translucent and very small, only 2 or 3 inches long. It wasn’t even clear whether this was a live creature or just a bit of floating debris. They took photos, I took photos, but I wasn’t optimistic on how they’d turn out because it’s hard to get the focus right on something like this.
After they left, I hung around and saw the creature swimming, coming up in the water. I took a couple more photos before it descended again. When I got home I was thrilled that, out of the photos I took, this one turned out pretty well. From it, I could see that this was a very small flowery flounder. The general shape and details are a very small version of the adult fish. What’s interesting about this is that flounders start out life looking like regular fish, swimming upright and with an eye on each side of its head. But within a few days, flounders start to lean to one side and one eye begins to migrate to join its partner on the other side.
This tiny, very young flounder has already completed that transition.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Inside.’ See more responses here.
I have a ladder I keep in a shed. Lately, I’ve had to access the attic on a regular basis (rat problems!) and have to bring the ladder inside to do so. I’ve learned from experience that, while in the shed, the ladder is home to a variety of creatures, mostly geckos. So before I bring it in the house I do my best to shake out the residents. Almost always, one or two will leap to safety. However, sometimes it’s not until I have the ladder in the house and set up that the more tenacious geckos make a break for it.
I’ve had a spate of this happening, which has resulted in a boost in the numbers of nocturnal house geckos inside. This, in turn, has resulted in territorial clashes between the geckos.
What does this have to do with jars of pasta? Well, at one end of this shelf is a cupboard which is home to one of the resident geckos. The other end of the shelf falls into the realm of a house gecko that lives in a closet in the next room. Into this setup, up above the jars, stumbled one of the new geckos. When it got too close to one end, the cupboard gecko chased it away. It ran to the other end where the closet gecko chased it back. Back and forth it went with the other geckos closing in with each pass. Soon the three of them were very close together.
At this point, the new gecko scurried down the wall in amongst the jars. This left the two resident geckos facing off in close proximity. Cupboard gecko charge the other one, but ran right past while closet gecko just looked bemused. Problem was, now they were both separated from their respective territories by the other gecko. A series of feints and scampers ensued before they regained their own homes.
In the meantime, the new gecko kept a low profile down amongst the pasta jars. That’s when I took this photo, as it was tentatively checking to see if the coast was clear.
Graham's Island 