This gecko appears to be figuring out exactly how it’s going to get to the Visitor’s Center at Hawai’i Tropical Bioreserve & Garden. I didn’t wait to find out if it made it.
Signs: Gecko leaving
Surfing at Keokea
Last week, I went out to Keokea Beach Park for the first time in quite a while. It’s a scenic little park, with a breakwater protecting a shallow area where kids can get in the water safely, a rarity on this stretch of coast.
Outside the breakwater, waves rolling in from the northeast had lured some surfers into the water. It looked a little hairy, riding those waves, apparently headed for the rocks. But the surfers were angling across the waves, from right to left as I looked at them, and so were pretty safe unless they made a major mistake. Those who did end up in the water were dismounting rather than wiping out.
Now you see me…
I spotted this little blenny out in the open, but as I raised my camera it shot away into its hole in the rock. I was impressed by its lightning speed, but more so by its ability to back into its hole at that speed.
I think this is probably a Bullethead Blenny, though it’s hard to make that determination from this photo.
Spencer Beach Park from the air
Spencer Beach Park is a place I visit fairly often. Recently, I had the opportunity to fly to Maui and, while I was in the air, took the usual plethora of photos. Some of these were of the park.
The top photo shows the park with its sandy beach, surrounding trees, and calm blue waters offshore. It also shows how close the recent brush fires came to the park. The building on the left side of the photo is the visitor center for Pu’ukohola Heiau National Historic Site, which adjoins the site.
In the bottom photo, Spencer is at the lower left. To the right is Mauna Kea resort, which did suffer some damage in the fires. Mauna Kea Volcano provides the backdrop.
A bevy of bridges
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Bridges.’ See more responses here.
The top image is an elegant bridge on the coast, in the Hilton Resort at Waikoloa. It spans an inlet from the ocean into a lagoon. This bridge is part of the coast path, which is open for anyone to walk.
The Big Island’s main use of bridges is to span the numerous gullies that run from the mountains down to the ocean. On the east side, some of these bridges are quite long and high, with vertigo-inducing views over the edge. These three bridges cross gullies in North Kohala on the winding road from Kapaau to Pololu. The third has several houses nearby, so a walkway has been added. This is surely safer than walking on the road, though not by much judging from its appearance!
Finally, bridges of a different kind. Anoles and geckos use lines, attached to the house, to get around. Sometimes these one-lane bridges lead to encounters with fellow travelers. In this case the smaller anole leapt off into the cane grass, but that was its intended destination anyway. In the second photo, this anole was using the washing line to bridge the space from the house to a hedge.
What a handsome fellow
Hello good looking!
Thanks for ruining that!
Leaning tower of Albizia
This Albizia tree leans precariously over a narrow road in North Kohala. The bottom photo shows the view from below it. I don’t tend to spend much time in that spot in case it chooses that moment to topple over, though the tree hasn’t budged in the 10 years I’ve lived here.
Abstracts: Aglow
I’d like to say this is an image that featured prominently in NASA’s recent foray into UFO investigations. (Apparently, they’re not called UFOs anymore. They’re UAPs (unidentified anomalous phenomena) which I find far less engaging.) However, this image is not of a UFO or even a UAP.
Recently, I got a new printer and it has this circular light that tells me it’s on. This light pulses continuously. It’s also very bright. When I got up in the middle of the night, it was like the house interior was illuminated by one of those rotating searchlights used in prison camps.
It’s a frightening thought that some designer thought this was a good idea. This consumer thought it a very bad idea. However, there was no way to turn the light off unless the machine was turned off. Plan B was to cover the light so it wasn’t so bright. Sounds simple, but it took several tries before finding a dense enough tape combination to dim the light to acceptable levels.
Graham's Island 