The brilliant orange flowers of silk oak trees not only catch the eye, but are rich with nectar, making them a favorite of birds such as Japanese white-eyes. There were several flitting through this particular tree.
For more information about silk oaks, go to wildlifeofhawaii.com/flowers/1368/grevillea-robusta-silk-oak/.
Here is a great candidate for exhibit A in ‘good intentions gone wrong in Hawaii.’ Back in the late 1800’s, rising rat numbers on the Big Island were causing concern, especially among sugar plantation owners. I mean, nobody wants rats around. They bite. They carry disease. They breed like crazy. They kill native birds and eat their eggs. They’re just generally nasty and a menace.
So the plantation owners brought in the small Asian mongoose (Herpestes javanicus) to control the rat population. What could possibly go wrong? Well, for starters, mongooses are diurnal, operating mostly during the day. Rats are nocturnal, active at night. So apart from the twilight hours, never the twain shall meet. In consequence, mongooses had next to no effect on the rat population. The plan was dead on arrival. Still, no harm done, right?
Not exactly. Since the mongooses weren’t subsisting on a diet of fat, juicy rats, they needed something else to eat. And one of the many things on their menu was native bird eggs. The net result was that, instead of eliminating rats, the mongoose extended the problems they caused to 24 hours a day. The effect on native birds in particular, was especially damaging. Kaua’i has a far greater abundance of birds than the Big Island, in large part because it is still, theoretically, mongoose-free.
In Hawaii, mongooses are the poster animals for the devastation wrought by invasive species because, well, they bite, they carry disease, they breed like crazy, they kill native birds and eat their eggs. In fact, they’re just generally nasty and a menace.
Here on the Big Island, mongooses are most often seen scooting across highways. A generous scattering of squashed corpses attests to those that didn’t make it.
For more information about the small Asian mongoose, go to instanthawaii.com/cgi-bin/hawaii?Animals.mongoose.
A shoal of small fish swim in one of the golden pools at Keawaiki. The gold color is due to a unique kind of algae growing there.
These little fish can have quite different coloration. The silvery one to the right is a common sight. The one above is a male in his courtship and spawning colors. Later, when he’s guarding the eggs, he’ll be a more silvery blue with an orange patch on the lower jaw. Juveniles can vary from silvery blue to yellow.
Many other fish also have extensive color variations, which can make it difficult identifying individuals. Oval Chromis are one the larger family of damselfishes. While their colors and patterns vary quite a bit, they all have a similar ‘look,’ which, in this case, helped narrow down what I was looking at.
In my attempts to identify what I see in the water, I use John P. Hoover’s book The Ultimate Guide to Hawaiian Reef Fishes, Sea Turtles, Dolphins, Whales, and Seals. His website is hawaiisfishes.com.
Last September, a 13-foot tiger shark attacked a spear fisherman off Upolu Point in North Kohala. Luckily he had friends there and they got him to hospital. En route, he posted photos of his serious wounds on Facebook!
Usually, when there’s a shark attack, nearby beaches are closed. In this case, it’s a somewhat remote area with no beaches so there were no closures. But any time there’s an attack or even a reported sighting, these ‘Shark Sighted – Keep Out” signs are posted. What I particularly liked in this case was that the sign was attached to the fence at Upolu Airport (which is no more than a lightly-used landing strip). Was this something new from the sharks? An air attack?
In fairness, there’s really no better place to post such a sign and the dirt road that runs alongside the fence is the one most people use when heading toward the coast. But I like to imagine that some tourist came by and wondering whether some shark had flown in in this instance.
The sign blew away within a couple of days by which time I expect the shark was also many miles away. Or perhaps not. Dun dun dun dun …
For more information about the shark attack off Upolu Point, go to westhawaiitoday.com/news/local-news/shark-attacks-man-upolu-point.
The beach at Pololu is a steep 15 minute hike down from the end of the highway. It takes longer going back up. Someone had recently been busy building cairns down there.
Crab spiders (also known as spiny-backed spiders) came to Hawaii in 1985. They spread through all the islands and are especially numerous here in the winter months. They build dense thickets of webs such as these between two tangerine trees. They look threatening, but aren’t particularly. People do get bitten, mostly if a spider falls on them or gets lodged in clothing.
I usually encounter them when I miss spotting a web and end up with it wrapped around my head. Their webs, which often span a 10 or 20 foot gap, seem especially strong and sticky.
For more information about crab spiders, go to gardenguyhawaii.com/2011/12/crab-spiders.html.
This filefish is quite distinctive. It has a flattened body and long tail fin. Typically, it has a pale body with blue spots and scribbly lines, which is where it gets its name. It also has the ability to darken to a camouflage pattern, which is what this one was doing, though the blue lines are still visible. When sporting the camouflage pattern, they lie on the coral and blend in very well indeed.
In my attempts to identify what I see in the water, I use John P. Hoover’s book The Ultimate Guide to Hawaiian Reef Fishes, Sea Turtles, Dolphins, Whales, and Seals. His website is hawaiisfishes.com.
Graham's Island 