It’s not often that Shakespeare comes to mind with my photos, but with this one I think of the caption, “When shall we three meet again … hey, wait a minute.” The last bit might not be Shakespeare, an early draft perhaps.
These four spotted eagle rays were puttering about in clear, shallow water so I got a decent photo without getting wet.
Honokohau harbor, at the north end of Kailua-Kona, is the main small boat harbor on the west side of the Big Island. Here, under an ominous sky, a man does some work near the top of the mast of one boat.
A metallic skink peeks out from under a lava ledge. This was on the Puʻu ʻŌʻō Trail, off Saddle Road at an elevation of more than 5,000 feet. It seemed a very challenging environment for the skink.
The cannonball tree (Couroupita guianensis) is pretty distinctive. It sprouts pink or red flowers the length of its trunk and follows them with woody, round fruits that give the tree its name. This one was at Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden.
For more information about Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, go to htbg.com.
A peek of a Japanese white-eye sitting on a clutch of eggs in its nest.
One things I like about the east side of the Big Island is the variety of places where one gets a peek of the ocean through tropical foliage. Sometimes this can be from the main highway that circles the island (the belt highway). More often, it’s from a smaller road.
This view of the Pacific is from a narrow, twisty stretch of the original belt highway, north of Hilo.
I thought I’d seen the last of a large undulating eel when it slid under a ledge, but it re-emerged, only to slide into a crease in this patch of coral. The tail was visible for a short while, giving me this final peek, until that too disappeared.
Sailfin tang are pretty common. Usually the ones I see are a dark brown with vertical yellow bars and a yellow tail. A close look reveals thinner pale stripes between the vertical bars. There’s a photo here.
These two sailfin tangs, that I saw in shallow, murky water, were a first for me. They’re much paler and brighter, the thinner stripes are clearly defined, and their dorsal and anal fins are extended.
According to my fish book, the fins extension could be because the fish were alarmed, but it doesn’t say anything about them become lighter when this happens. I wondered if it was some sort of mating coloration, but again, my book says the fish darken when they do that.
So I’m not sure what was going on, but was happy to have spotted them and pleased that I got a decent photo given the murky water conditions.
Graham's Island 