F-22 Raptor at Kahului Airport

F-22 at Kahului Airport on Maui

F-22 at Kahului AirportRecently, I took a short jaunt to Maui. By short, I mean I left in the morning and returned at lunchtime and the only place I visited was Kahului Airport. However, while I was there I did get to see this F-22 Raptor make three low-level passes of the airport.

I happened to be outside when it made its first pass. By the time it returned, people had spilled out of offices and workshops, phones pointed at the sky, as it zipped by. And it did zip by. Compared to the rest of the action – commercial planes lumbering in to land, light aircraft wobbling through the wind, helicopters scooting up and around and away – the F-22 was a flash of noise and action.

The F-22 Raptor entered service in the United States Air Force (USAF) in 2005 and the last plane was delivered to the USAF in 2012. It has since been largely supplanted by the F-35 which is considered to be cheaper (relatively speaking) and more flexible.

Bold gray francolin

Gray Francolin

Gray Francolin headGray francolins are a favorite bird of mine, not for their loud and raucous call, especially early in the morning, but for their goofy behavior.

They blend in very well in dry, grassy surroundings. I often encounter them when one or more loses it’s nerve and shoots out from cover, which leaves me as startled as the francolin. Sometimes they’ll fly out, but more frequently they take off running. When this happens alongside a fence the bird will run along, pausing occasionally to probe for an escape route, with me calling after it, ‘You can fly you know.’ If it doesn’t find a hole in the fence it will eventually take off, but it’s as if they’ve all been told they can only take off 20 times in their lifetime.

The gray francolin in these photos neither ran nor flew. It stood its ground quite boldly, making sure to keep a sharp eye on me as I edged past trying not to alarm it. When I’d done so it wandered off through the grass looking quite pleased that it hadn’t used one of its 20 airborne escapes.

Royal poinciana

Royal Poinciana flower spray

Royal Poinciana flowersRoyal poinciana (Delonix regia) is also known as the flame tree. As well as producing a stunning array of crimson flowers, it has lacy-looking leaves and produces long, distinctive seed pods.

I noticed this tree, tucked away at the end of a small commercial area in Kawaihae. The top photo shows an array of flowers. The flowers consist of four red petals with a fifth upright petal which is more yellow and white, as in the photo to the right. The photo below shows three of the seed pods which start out green before turning brown. At the bottom is the full tree. It can do well close to the ocean, as this one is, because it’s salt tolerant.

Royal Poinciana seed pods

Royal Poinciana tree

Sonoran carpenter bee

Carpenter Bee female on a passion flower

Carpenter Bee female lifts off a passion flowerThe Sonoran carpenter bee (Xylocopa sonorina) was first recorded in Hawaii around 1874. This black bee is a female. Males are golden orange in color and smaller than the female.

These bees get their name because the females tunnel into wood to create cavities in which to lay eggs and raise their young. The entrance to a nest is usually a neat, half-inch diameter hole in the wood. In the wild, the bees make nests in dead branches or tree stumps, but around human habitation they’ll bore into fence posts, rails, and roof eves. Because of this tunneling habit, these bees are sometimes considered pests, but the damage they cause is far outweighed by their importance as pollinators.

In Hawaii, passion fruits are one of the many fruits and vegetables pollinated by carpenter bees. The bottom photo shows how the bee’s size helps it pollinate the passion fruit’s large flower. It also shows how battered this poor bee’s wings have become. She was still able to get airborne though.

Carpenter Bee female

Civilian Conservation Corps Cabin on Mauna Kea

CCC Cabin and water tank Mauna Kea

This Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Cabin is one of seven that were built around Mauna Kea in the 1930s. The CCC was a public work relief program to create jobs during the Great Depression. It focused on the conservation of resources on government-owned lands.

The seven cabins on Mauna Kea were used by crews working on the construction of sheep-proof fencing. The goal was to remove sheep from parts of Mauna Kea in order to protect the high-elevation dry forest which was rapidly being destroyed.

This cabin is just above the Palila Forest Discovery Trail on the southwest slopes of Mauna Kea.

Posted in response to this week’s Sunday Stills challenge on the theme of ‘Work.’ See more responses here.

CCC Cabin Mauna Kea

Pearl wrasse

Pearl Wrasse grazing

Pearl WrasseThe pearl wrasse, which is endemic to Hawaii, gets its name from the markings of the female, which look like strings of pearls. The male pearl wrasse is predominantly green with fine blue lines.

I hadn’t seen a pearl wrasse before, or at least not identified one, until this female showed up in a fairly shallow area. She was there for several days before apparently moving on and I haven’t seen her again since.

A striking fish at any time, this one was particularly brilliant when the sun caught her colors.

Mauna Loa Observatory

Mauna Loa Observatory

Mauna Loa Observatory access roadThe top of Mauna Kea is dotted with telescopes, but Mauna Loa’s summit is bare save for some small pieces of equipment monitoring the volcano’s seismic activity and small changes in inflation and deflation.

However, just above the 11,000 foot level on Mauna Loa’s northern slope is the Mauna Loa Observatory. The observatory is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – Earth System Research Laboratory – Global Monitoring Division.

Since 1958, the observatory has been monitoring changes in the atmosphere and in particular, levels of carbon dioxide, one of the leading contributors to global warming. It’s the world’s oldest continuous carbon dioxide monitoring station, which is ironic given that it’s situated in one of the few countries on Earth not subject to global warming (and if you’re wondering how that works, all you have to do is go to the beach, stick your head in the sand and, voila, no more global warming.).

In the top photo, the two domes on the left house solar sensors operated by the Mauna Loa Solar Observatory which shares the site. The bottom photo shows the observatory under a near full moon. And in the middle is a view back down the road to the observatory, an up and down, winding one-lane road, which is one of my favorite drives on the island.

For more information on the Mauna Loa Observatory, go to https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/obop/mlo/.

Mauna Loa Observatory and moon