Juvenile goatfish gather in quite large shoals close to shore. Sometimes they rest on the bottom, sometimes hang in the water. I like the formations they make as they hover above the sandy bottom, studded with coral and rocks.
Abstracts: Goatfish
Category Archives: Series
Signs: Practice makes perfect
I was hiking in Kalopa Native Forest State Park when I came across the trail sign above. Nothing too remarkable about that, but I happened to notice the back side of the sign (middle), which showed that getting the sign right took a bit of practice.
On a subsequent visit, I noticed that the back of sign at the other end of the trail (bottom) had also seen a rejected first effort.
Abstracts: Floating stick
Just a stick that I came across, floating vertically in the water. Where does the stick begin and end and where’s the surface of the water?
Abstracts: Moss
Patches of moss coat the base of a tree at Kalōpā Forest Reserve.
Signs: Heavy water
This sign guards what is presumably Hawaii’s heavy water plant, though why such a plant would be halfway up the side of Mauna Kea is a mystery. Or perhaps the sign is just a warning that it would not be a good idea to pick up the large water tank behind the sign. Either way, the sign made me smile.
Abstracts: Fern canopy
The fronds of a fern stand out against overhead light.
Abstracts: A praying mantis blends in
A praying mantis shows how well it can blend into the background while climbing through some grasses.
Signs: Cardboard only
For a good many years, the Big Island has had a fairly standard recycling program. Glass, cardboard, paper, aluminum and other metals, and many types of plastic were collected for recycling.
Last week, the plastic and paper part of that program was tossed into the trash. The reason, according to officials, is that the market for those kinds of materials has gone in the tank. China stopped buying those materials last year. Since then, other countries in that business have been overwhelmed and shut up shop.
But the economics of the program weren’t the only problem. A lot of those recyclable products couldn’t actually be recycled because they had so much trash mixed in with them they were essentially garbage. People didn’t pay attention to what they could and couldn’t recycle and didn’t put the appropriate, clean materials in the proper place. ‘Recycling’ used pizza boxes with bits of three cheese pizza stuck all over them didn’t help, and I’ve seen plenty of things like that being recycled.
What will happen now is that more stuff will end up in the trash and that’s still a problem. The landfill on the east side of the island closed this year and now all trash from that side is trucked to the west side landfill. At some point that will become full. And then what. It’s not a situation that’s likely to get better any time soon.
Graham's Island 