January: A Feather-legged Fly (Trichopoda pennipes) on a Tree Heliotrope (link).
Sunday Stills challenge theme this week and next week is ‘Your 2024 Year-in-Review.’ See more responses here. As usual, I’m going with a favorite photo from each month of 2024, with a caption and link to the post the photo first appeared in. This week’s post is for January through June. See the rest of the year next week.
February: A Ring-billed Gull struts at ʻAnaehoʻomalu Bay (link).March: A woman walks the beach at Kohanaiki Beach Park (link).
The Humpback Whale season here has been underway for a few weeks, but I hadn’t seen many until a few days ago. Then, on one of my coast walks, I saw half a dozen or more.
This whale was in the company of another one, which had dived just before this. I like the curve of the tail and how the water drains off it, just before it’s full submerged.
A Black-crowned Night Heron in a spot of bother in a pond at Kawaihae.
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 174. Captions are on the photos. You can see more responses here.
A lively Lesser Brown Scorpion.A Passion-vine Butterfly getting to grips with a tasselflower.A White-tailed Tropicbird.Beer taps.Just so you don’t get lost at Kaulana Manu Nature Trail.The breakwater at Kawaihae appears to lead the way to Maui.
This month’s Sunday Stills color challenge theme is ‘Metallic.’ See more responses here.
The top photo shows a Metallic Skink (Lampropholis delicata), which is also known as Delicate Skink, Garden Skink, Rainbow Skink, and less-flatteringly, Plague Skink. This one was crossing a road, luckily a lightly-traveled one.
The second photo is an orchid with the catchy name of Rhyncholaeliocattleya Shingfong Gold Gem ‘Golden Gem.’
The third photo is shoal of small, silvery fish, which I think are the aptly named Hawaiian Silversides.
Smoke from a brush fire colors the sky over the North Kohala coast
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 172. Captions are on the photos. You can see more responses here.
Got to keep those eyes clean!Watch out for a bump up ahead.A tug enters Kawaihae harbor while a crewman checks his phone.A Yellow-fronted Canary keeps watch.An Emerald Cockroach Wasp.Mangoes down after some strong winds.
I was alerted to an ongoing dispute between a Green Anole and Gold Dust Day Gecko outside the kitchen window. By the time I got there, the two were had moved away, but were still squabbling. I grabbed my camera, thinking that by the time I got outside, the fracas would be over, but that wasn’t the case. The two were still going at it.
When it comes to territorial disputes, an anole puffs out its dewlap. If that doesn’t work it will act aggressively towards the intruder. A gecko leans over to one side to make itself look bigger and pokes out its tongue. These two went through the full repertoire, with the anole making a few mouth-open lunges.
In the end, the anole wandered off to the end of the overhang and the gecko headed back the way it came from. It wasn’t clear whether there was a winner or loser in the exchange but neither was hurt, which is not unusual in these encounters.
Early morning light on the Kohala Mountain hillside.
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 171. Captions are on the photos. You can see more responses here.
A Gold Dust Day Gecko on a pink banana.A switchback on the Kilauea Iki Trail.Ripples in the water of ʻAimakapā Fishpond at Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park.A Common Waxbill feeds on cane grass seeds.Hawaiian Stilts.African Silverbills at a window. See the full sequence here