Spotted coral blenny

Blennies are the kind of fish that it’s hard not to like. They always appear to be smiling and their willingness to stay put when being observed is appreciated. This one is a female and its behavior is typical of spotted coral blennies in Hawaii. Here, they often sit out in the open, but elsewhere in the Pacific, they almost always shelter in branches of coral.

Posted in response to Becky’s October Squares challenge theme of ‘Kind.’ See more responses here. Also posted in response to this week’s Friendly Friday challenge theme of ‘Smiles.’ See more responses here.

Irrigation

It’s been a very dry summer and fall in this part of the island. This is one of the greener fields in the area and that’s entirely due to irrigation of which this is one unit.

Posted in response to Bushboy’s Last on the Card photo challenge. See more responses here.

Halema’uma’u Trail

The trail winds down through woods and abundant vegetation.
Steps lead down from the mossy pass featured in a previous post.

Recently, I posted a couple of photos (here) of a section of the Halema’uma’u Trail in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. I thought I’d follow up with a few more photos of the trail, which runs from near the visitor center down to the edge of the summit caldera of Kilauea Volcano.

For more information about Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, go to nps.gov/havo/.

The trail suddenly emerges at the edge of the summit caldera of Kilauea Volcano. In the morning, the bench is a shady spot to take in the view.
Halema’uma’u Trail carries on across the caldera, marked by cairns, but this section has been closed since 2008, when the Halema’uma’u Crater vent became active. These days it would lead straight into the depths of the greatly enlarged Halema’uma’u Crater.

Sheep on the run

On my drives to and from Upolu Airport, it’s not uncommon to encounter groups of sheep on the road. Some of the field fencing is not in the greatest shape and, in any case, it’s primarily there to corral cattle, not that it always works for that either.

When I do encounter sheep, their typical response is to run ahead of me. At some point though, they usually veer off to the side and I can get by. Sometimes they turn and run back towards me. The last group I saw ran off, with several of the leaping into the air, twirling as they did so. I don’t think it was because they were so excited to see me.

Floating debris and tiny sergeant fish

I was out snorkeling with a friend when I noticed her taking photos of a small clump of floating debris. When I headed over to see what was so interesting about the debris, I saw a host of tiny fish swimming around and within the clump. This was a small example of how fish, particularly smaller fish, will use floating objects to give them some cover and security from predators.

Most of the fish appeared to be sergeant fish, probably Indo-Pacific Sergeants, no more than half an inch long, but with their dark bars quite distinct. There were a couple of other species there, too, in smaller numbers, but I’m not sure what they were. (Update: The slightly larger grey fish are freckled driftfish. Thanks to John Hoover for the ID.)

The second photo gives a sense of scale and shows how small this little world was. It also shows the fish migrating across to check out whether this new clumpy thing might make a good new home. They did this with both of us, but returned to the floating debris, figuring wisely that it offered better shelter for them.

Posted in response to this week’s Friendly Friday challenge theme of ‘Quiet Places.’ See more responses here.