Category Archives: Places

Surfboards

Fins on a surfboard
A surfboard ready for the water

This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Spring Green.’ See more responses here.

I’m not exactly sure what qualifies as spring green. I found a variety of values online, none of which matched anything in my archives. I went out and took photos, thinking I’d found a match. No dice.

In the end, I noticed these surfboard fins while walking at Kohanaiki Park and thought they made a cheerful scene, in the ballpark of the color I was looking for. Just beyond them was a surfboard under a tree that more or less matched the fins. And while there’s no spring green in the bottom photo, I thought it proper to show surfboards in action. These are only little waves, but there were plenty of surfers waiting to catch a ride.

Surfing in Hawaii

Goats at Kiholo

Two goat kids playing at Kiholo, Hawaii
A goat and her kid at Kiholo, Hawaii

There are no shortage of goats at Kiholo and it doesn’t look like their numbers will be dwindling any time soon. On my last visit these two kids caught my eye with their typically rambunctious behavior. Mom, in the middle photo, looked singularly unimpressed.

Two goat kids playing at Kiholo, Hawaii

More black and white photos

Clouds swirl around Pu'u Ahumoa on the slopes of Mauna Kea
Surf crashes ashore at Mahukona, Hawaii

This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Your Best Black & White Photos.’ See more responses here. Having posted only one black and white photo until recently, this is the second such post in a couple of weeks.

In the top photo, clouds swirl around Pu’u Ahumoa on the southwest slope of Mauna Kea. The second photo shows surf crashing against the same wharf seen in the previous post. Last, but by no means least, is a photo of a tide pool on the North Kohala coast.

A tide pool on the North Kohala coast, Hawaii

Praying mantis egg sacs

A praying mantis egg sac on a branch
A praying mantis egg sac on a branch
A praying mantis egg sac on a tree trunk

When I’m out walking, I rarely see praying mantis egg sacs. They’re no more than an inch long and they can blend in with the trees and branches where they tend to be found. However, on a recent walk on the coast, I saw these three sacs in the space of 20 minutes, the top two on branches and the third on a tree trunk.

I’m not sure why they caught my eye, though this is the time of year when they’re typically seen. Perhaps it was because I was watching for butterflies and dragonflies, so was paying a bit more attention to details than usual.

Each sac can contain up to 300 eggs. The eggs are encased in foam, called ootheca, which hardens into the sacs seen here. The sac in the middle photo was crawling with ants, which I suspect is not good news for the would-be mantises inside.

Abstracts: Dragonflies mating

A pair of Black Saddlebags Dragonflies mating as reflected in a pool

The pool at the south end of Kiholo State Park Reserve is a hotspot for birds and insects. When I go there, I’m lured in to taking photos of dragonflies. I ran one at the bottom of this post. This is another from that visit, showing a pair of black saddlebags dragonflies mating. I failed to get the actual dragonflies in any of my photos, but did get this reflection of them in the pool.