The gecko is a gold dust day gecko, originally from Madagascar, and the bromeliad is aechmea blanchetiana, originally from Brazil. I liked this scene for the strong color contrast.
These were seen at Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden. For more information about Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, go to htbg.com.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Early.’ See more offerings here.
So here’s a sunrise over Kohala Mountain. Enough said.
I’ve lived on the Big Island for more than seven years now, and I’ve seen lots of nene in that time. But until recently, I’d never seen a nene gosling. Then, a few weeks ago, I was driving and saw a pair of nenes with a gosling alongside the road. Alas, I couldn’t stop and take a photo at that time. I went back to the area later, but didn’t see the family again.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, I was out on one of my regular walks around Upolu and I saw this family at the airport. The two parent birds were very attentive and the chick was just a little ball of fuzz.
When I see nene at Upolu, I call the information in to the East Hawai’i Division of Forestry and Wildlife. Forestry and Wildlife keep track of the birds and how they’re doing. Many birds are banded and, when I can, I record that information and pass it on. The bands can be seen in the photos, but not the details. However, I was able to get other pictures that showed the parent birds were 8A7 and 8A6. The color of the bands helps identify them and which leg the bands are on depends on the bird’s sex.
I saw this family again the next day, but not after that. It turned out that the Forestry and Wildlife people relocated the family because they felt that the airport was a dangerous place for the gosling, particularly as it grows and learns to fly.
Still, it was fun to see the little one when I did. It reminded me of the baby goats that I see around the island. Like them, it would busily follow its parents in foraging for food, then suddenly drop to the ground to rest, only to bounce up again soon after and peck away again.
Some recent high surf made a breach in the breakwater of the northern small boat harbor at Kawaihae. Besides punching this hole in the rock barrier, the wooden mooring floats were also badly damaged and boats using the harbor were ordered to relocate since it was no longer safe.
Repairing the damage being estimated to cost around $8 million. Usually these kinds of thing overrun the estimates by a generous margin.
The top photo shows the extent of the damage as a tug and barge approach the harbor. Below, the picnic tables are deserted as the wind whips up whitecaps and a blast of sand across the area.
Incidentally, the tug and barge were unable to get into harbor because of the strong crosswinds and spent the night out at sea. They were still there next morning when I saw them, but were able to finally get into the harbor a few hours later.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘For the Birds.’ See more offerings here.
Bird baths and bird feeders are a couple of subjects for this theme and these photos are of what is, in effect, a bird feeder. It’s a fish pond at Hualalai Resort and where there’s a fish pond, there will likely be herons. I saw half a dozen perched around one of the ponds there, but this adult black-crowned night heron was the only one I saw catch anything.
It lunged its beak into the water and pulled this good-sized fish out onto the bank. After a few minutes of tossing the fish around to get it lined up properly, the bird swallowed it whole. The photo at right shows the fish on its way down.
I see green turtles hauled out on pebbles, rocks, and lava flats, but a sandy beach seems to be the preferred spot for a rest. They’re rather ungainly on land, so digging those flippers into soft sand and nudging forward to a suitable spot is probably easiest for them.
An array of lane dividers, pool markings and reflections at the local swimming pool in Kapaau.
I saw this interesting-looking vessel tied up alongside the wharf at Kawaihae harbor for a week or more in the first half of January. When I searched for information about the boat, I learned that it’s the Sailing Vessel Kwai, a cargo vessel operating between Hawaii and Kiribati and the Cook Islands in the Pacific.
I’m not sure what it was doing in Kawaihae. The boat had been in Honolulu earlier in the month, on completion of its 51st voyage. Their 52nd voyage left Honolulu on January 24. Perhaps they were picking up cargo or doing maintenance in between these dates.
According to the first blog from Voyage 52 (here), the boat returned to the west side of the Big Island to search for a ghost net. A ghost net is a large clump of fishing nets that can be very destructive to ocean life and that will eventually wash up on shore somewhere being equally problematic when it does so. This net was estimated to be 50 feet long and deep by 70 feet wide.
A tracker had been attached to the ghost net so that it could be retrieved by a larger boat but, according to the blog post, when SV Kwai reached the area, only the tracker was found and retrieved. I haven’t heard or seen anything else about the net, so it is either still floating in the ocean or has washed up somewhere.
For more information about Sailing Vessel Kwai, go to svkwai.com. For more information about the ghost net, go here.
Graham's Island 