This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Fleeting Moments.’ See more responses here.
The orange and black spiky thing is a Passion Vine Butterfly caterpillar, which I saw munching on a passion vine, as they do. The fly didn’t register with me until I processed the photos, but it was definitely a fleeting moment.
A couple of weeks ago I posted (here) about an old shed on my neighbor’s property. This view is not far from the shed. With the cane grass removed, the twisting trees cast curling shadows on the newly cleared ground.
I saw this Cacao Tree or Cocoa Tree (Theobroma Cacao) at Hawai’i Tropical Bioreserve & Garden. I think it’s been there a long time, but this is the first time I’ve noticed it with pods. The pods are the fruit of the tree and if you cut one open, inside you’ll find a cluster of fun-sized candy bars.
Well, maybe not, but you will find an important contributor to those candy bars, cacao seeds or beans, the prime ingredient in chocolate. Each of those seeds, up to 60 per pod, contains a large amount of fat, otherwise known as cocoa butter.
For more information about Hawai’i Tropical Bioreserve & Garden, go to htbg.com.
I often see purple agapanthus around here, but I think this was the first time I’ve seen the white version, here in Waimea.
Following on from yesterday’s post about the lack of rain at Upolu, it occurred to me that I rarely see Passion Vine Butterflies there these days. They used to be all over the place, but now I’m lucky to see one or two. I don’t think it’s related to the lack of rainfall, but don’t know what other factors might be involved.
A swathe of Beach Naupaka grows in black sand near Apua Point in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.
Pink plumeria flowers stand out against the tree’s large green leaves in North Kohala.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Macro or Close-ups.’ See more responses here.
I saw this cricket climbing up the spadix of a white anthurium at Hawai’i Tropical Bioreserve & Garden. As it neared the top, I zoomed in for a close up. I haven’t been able to find out what kind of cricket it is (open to suggestions), but I was very taken by its extravagantly long antennae.
For more information about Hawai’i Tropical Bioreserve & Garden, go to htbg.com.
Updated 9-17-2022: Thanks to Forest and Kim Starr at Hawaii Insect ID for pointing out this is probably a cricket, though exactly which kind remains unknown.
Graham's Island 