Visiting Kailua Kona, it’s never hard to know if a cruise ship is in. They invariably are the largest thing in view, dwarfing any and all of the downtown buildings. On a recent visit, I got this photo from the Walmart parking lot (a solid contender for the Walmart with the best view in the world!).
It used to be that Wednesday was cruise ship day, but currently there are three or four ships a week stopping by. This one is the Europa 2, which is operated by Hapag-Lloyd Cruises. It carries up to 516 passengers, which means it is less crowded than most cruise ships.
Strong winds whip up whitecaps in Kawaihae harbor.
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 139. Captions are on the photos.
A Black-crowned Night Heron snaffles a Tilapia. Original post here.Bees and their honeycomb inside the wall of a house. Original story here.The firehose of lava at Kilauea Volcano in 2017.Hawaiian Stilts in flight.There’s always one who’s got to get your attention, as evidenced by these Northern Pintails.
I drive past the port facility in Kawaihae all the time. Sometimes, in the early morning, I’m there when a second bank of lights are turned on. These lights start out red, but quickly warm up to their normal yellow.
This is a feature of low-pressure sodium lights, which I assumed these are. However, the manufacturer stopped making those lamps five years ago, so I’m not sure. Not that it would be unusual for Hawaii to several years behind the times!
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. The top photo was one of these and I thought, I must have run this before, but I hadn’t. It turned out to be a photo I’d processed, but neglected to move from my originals folder. Without The Numbers Game, I would never have found this!
This week’s number is 138. Captions are on the photos. You can see more responses here.
A Hawaiian Green Turtle swimming.Two Crocodile Needlefishes cruise just below the surface.Ironman is hard work …… but colorful.
Great Frigatebirds look like they’re not even trying when they fly!
I was driving down to Upolu for my usual walk when I saw a few Great Frigatebirds off in the distance. They seemed to be heading my way, so I pulled over and waited. As I did so, more appeared. They glided down towards the coast, then banked left to cross the road, which is when I took these photos.
They fly easily in formation.
I counted 17 in all, though there might have been more. Usually, I see these birds in ones and twos, but larger flocks like these are, apparently, not unusual. Such gatherings can be simply social, but can also improve their chances in the search for food, as well as for spotting predators, not that they have a lot of those while flying.
Males have a red gular sac at the throat. It makes them easy to identify, even at a distance.
My bird book notes that most Great Frigatebirds seen in Hawaii are females or juveniles, but I regularly see males, which are easily identified by the red gular sac on their throat. This sac can be impressively inflated during courtship.
Posted for Bird of the Week LVIII. See more responses here.
Graham's Island 