A metallic skink peeks out from under a lava ledge. This was on the Puʻu ʻŌʻō Trail, off Saddle Road at an elevation of more than 5,000 feet. It seemed a very challenging environment for the skink.
Category Archives: Animals
Hawaiian tiger
It’s Halloween, so I thought I should post something scary. Trouble is, there’s not a lot of scary stuff on the Big Island. Then I thought of the tiger I saw while out hiking one day.
Around this point is when I get an angry call from the Big Island tourist bureau, so I should clarify that my hike was through Pana‘ewa Rainforest Zoo in Hilo and the tiger is Tzatziki, a white Bengal tiger. Tzatziki is one of two tigers at the zoo. They arrived in March of 2016 as replacements for Namaste, another white Bengal tiger, who died in January 2014 at the age of 15.
Tzatziki is a reasonable choice for Halloween. He’s ghostly white and, as for scary, just imagine tumbling into the tiger enclosure. I suspect it would be a rapid transition from spectator to chew toy.
For more information about Pana‘ewa Rainforest Zoo & Gardens, go to hilozoo.org.
Pu’u Wa’awa’a rams
Another post on the theme of ‘Rounded,’ this week’s WordPress photo challenge.
There tend to be a number of sheep dotted around the slopes of Pu’u Wa’awa’a. These three rams trotted off ahead of me as I walked up the hill. I tried to go around them, giving them a wide berth, but they treated this as some kind of sinister maneuver and ran a little faster. Eventually, I got my nose ahead of them (even though it’s a smidge smaller than theirs), and they turned around and headed back the way they came as I carried on to the top.
I do like their curly, rounded horns, each a little different to the others, like fingerprints.
For more information about Pu’u Wa’a Wa’a and its trails, go to puuwaawaa.org.
Conehead katydid
I found this conehead katydid hugging the ground on a windy day. I think it’s probably a common conehead, but can’t say for sure.
Rose jatropha
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.
Cattle egret hunting
Another post on the theme of ‘Glow,’ this week’s WordPress photo challenge.
I looked out of the window early one morning, and saw this cattle egret staring intently, as they do, into fallen leaves bordering the yard. After a few minutes of that, a sudden lunge was followed by the top photo. That’s a green anole wrapped around the egret’s beak as it struggled, unsuccessfully, to get free. The photo on the left shows the egret swishing the anole back and forth, in an effort to finish it off.
I doubt the anole was happy, but the egret certainly glowed in the morning light.
Pu’u Wa’awa’a goat
The theme of this week’s WordPress photo challenge is ‘Glow,’ so I thought I’d use that as my cue for the week’s posts.
First up is a goat clinging to the precipitous side of Pu’u Wa’awa’a. I particularly like how the goat is looking at me, but casts a crisp, more profiled shadow in the early morning light.
On the downside, there must have been a dozen or so goats in the area and, between their avid grazing and scampering about on the exposed slopes, they contribute greatly to erosion. My time watching them was accompanied by the constant sound of small rocks tumbling down gullies and puffs of dust and dirt churned up by their hooves.
Stick insect
One thing I like about macro photography is that, sometimes, something in the photo gives a twist to the scale of things. This stick insect could be any size, but the tire tread suggests it’s fairly small. Except the tread looks so big and imposing, perhaps it’s a tire on one of those huge earth moving machines, which would make the stick insect a formidable size.
In fact, it’s just a truck tire and if the insect doesn’t move, it will become even more closely acquainted with the treads.
Graham's Island 