Category Archives: Insects

White-lined sphinx moth

Another post based on the theme of this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge, which is ‘Silence.’

I glimpsed this moth flitting by and snapped a couple of photos, one of which is the second shot. I realized this wasn’t something I’d seen before and wanted to get more photos to make identifying it easier, but it had gone to ground and I’d lost track of it. So I waited, scanning the ground without spotting anything. A light breeze ruffled the grass, but otherwise all was silence.

Eventually, having seen no sign of its presence, I gave up, got up and moved on. Within seconds the moth flew by again. This time I followed its flight and saw where it put down. Even then, as I padded towards it, I thought I’d lost it again. But when I zoomed in on the apparently empty spot, the moth appeared, as seen above. No chance I’m spotting this had I not seen it flying.

It’s a white-lined sphinx moth, first recorded in Hawaii in 1877 and now present on all the islands. It’s probably fairly common but it’s the first time I’ve seen one.

Sriracha the Bengal tiger

Sriracha, a female Bengal tiger, paces at Pana‘ewa Rainforest Zoo in Hilo.

This week’s WordPress photo challenge is to choose your favorite photo taken in 2017. I’m going with a photo that I haven’t posted before (though below I offer a few of my favorites that have run).

This is Sriracha, a female Bengal tiger and cousin of Tzatziki, a white male tiger. Both can be found at Pana‘ewa Rainforest Zoo in Hilo. What I like about this photo is those huge paws, the quiet movement, and the sense of great power that could be uncoiled at any moment.

For more information about Pana‘ewa Rainforest Zoo & Gardens, go to hilozoo.org.

As far as favorite photos already posted are concerned, I offer a few here:

Top. A gold dust day gecko drinking from a bird of paradise flower is a blaze of color (posted here).

Second. This photo captures the awesome spectacle of the lava firehose from Kilauea Volcano pouring into the ocean (posted here). Currently, while the flow is still active, lava is no longer entering the ocean.

Third. I was happy to snap the moment a passion vine butterfly laid an egg (posted here). This was taken on the same day as the gecko photo above, so a banner day for me.

Fourth. I like all the photos in this post for their color and how they capture something of this most Hawaiian of dance (posted here).

Finally, I love this gargantuan blenny for its name, and was very pleased to get this photo, since the fish is apt to dart away and the shallow water was rocking (posted here).

Bee on mock orange

A bee approaches a mock orange flower.A bee on a mock orange flower.

There’s a large mock orange in the corner of the yard that blooms three or four times a year. Sometimes just a section produces flowers. Other times, the whole plant turns creamy white. I do notice the blossoms, but what usually alerts me to a new bloom is the scent. A breath of air in the right direction and the house fills with the aroma of mock orange.

The most recent bloom encompassed the whole plant and also highlighted another of the plant’s attention-getters. It hums. It’s not unusual to wake up and, once the din of roosters and cardinals and francolins have been weeded out, a steady background hum takes over. This is the bees working over the mock orange flowers.

The blooms last only a few days. When the wind blows, which it does often here, the white petals fall to the ground like snow. But while this latest bloom occurred during a calm spell, still the snow fell. When the flowers first began to fade, the bees continued to pile in and their busy harvesting knocked the petals off.

Now the plant is a quiet, glossy green again. The blooms are gone, the bees are gone, the scent is gone, this temporary frenzy over in a week. Until the next time.

Rose jatropha

A Rose Jatropha on the Big Island of HawaiiA bee forages on a Rose Jatropha flower on the Big Island of Hawaii

Another post on the theme of ‘Glow,’ this week’s WordPress photo challenge.

I’ve posted photos of rose jatropha before (here). In fact, those photos were of this same plant, but probably not the same bee. They were taken later in the day on a previous hike. These photos were taken in the early morning when the light was better and the flowers were just starting to open.

The flowers really glowed and the bees, well they had to work a little harder, burrowing down into the bloom, but obviously with great success.