Where’s the shadow? It’s Lahaina noon! Original post here.
The idea of The Numbers Game is to enter a number into the search bar of your computer and then post a selection of the photos that turn up. This week’s number is 220. Captions are on the photos. You can see more responses here.
Also posted for Becky’s Squares: Shadows. See more responses here.
Great Frigatebirds on the wing.A Fiery Skipper butterfly on a Tree Heliotrope.A bee approaching an agave flower.Rainbow over a tsunami siren.A Snowflake Eel playing peekaboo.Spencer Beach Park at Kawaihae.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Wings and feathers.’ See more responses here.
A Wandering Glider Dragonfly wandering over a mud puddle.A Monarch Butterfly and Balloon Plant flowers.A Great Frigatebird glides along the coast.Hawaiian Noddies skim over the ocean.Nenes in formation.A Franklin’s Gull.
Kilauea Volcano in late April 2018. Original post here.
The idea of The Numbers Game is to enter a number into the search bar of your computer and then post a selection of the photos that turn up. This week’s number is 186. Captions are on the photos. You can see more responses here.
Christmas at Hapuna Resort.Trees from the air. They look like broccoli to me!A Great Frigatebird on the wing.A female Pearl Wrasse catches the light.An Ember Parrotfish. The eyes remind me of a teddy bear I had!Rainbow over the water.
Sunday Stills challenge theme this week and last week is ‘Your 2024 Year-in-Review.’ See more responses here. As before, I’m going with a favorite photo from each month of 2024, with a caption and link to the post the photo first appeared in. Last week, I posted favorites from January through June (here). This week, it’s July through December.
Yesterday, I was walking along the coast, head down, into a stiff breeze, when a shadow fell over me and then on the ground ahead. I had to laugh. It had been a while since this had happened to me. It was the unmistakable large shadow of a Great Frigatebird. I grabbed my camera out of the bag, and wrestled it into action, knowing as I did so that I wouldn’t get any decent photos.
The bird passed probably 10- or 15-feet overhead. By the time I took this photo it was way ahead, even into the wind. Then it dipped down closer to the water and I didn’t see it again.
Great Frigatebirds are prodigious flying machines and they appear effortless in their flight. Had I seen it earlier, it would likely have changed course earlier. But I suspect it’s not an accident when they pass directly overhead. I think they’re just winding me up!
A Great Frigatebird glides over the ocean off the Kohala coast.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Wings.’ See more responses here. Let’s start with the birds.
A Northern Cardinal juvenile coming to get me!A Nene displays an impressive wingspan.A pair of Hawaiian Noddies head to their roost at Whittington Park.
There are many winged insects too.
The delicate wings of a Roseate Skimmer Dragonfly.A pair of Passion Vine Butterflies flit about.
You can also find wings in the water
A trio of Eagle Rays cruise through coastal waters.A Manta Ray glides over the sea floor.
And there are other wings too.
A broach of emblem found lying in the grass.A UPS plane heads for Honolulu early one morning.
The idea of The Numbers Game is to enter a number into the search bar of your computer and then post a selection of the photos that turn up. This week’s number is 148. Captions are on the photos. You can see more responses here.
A spinner dolphin doing what it’s named for.A grasshopper wondering if it could do that!A Great Frigatebird knows it doesn’t have to do any spinning because it glides supremely well.This Manta Ray is quietly confident it can spin and glide with the best of them!
Great Frigatebirds look like they’re not even trying when they fly!
I was driving down to Upolu for my usual walk when I saw a few Great Frigatebirds off in the distance. They seemed to be heading my way, so I pulled over and waited. As I did so, more appeared. They glided down towards the coast, then banked left to cross the road, which is when I took these photos.
They fly easily in formation.
I counted 17 in all, though there might have been more. Usually, I see these birds in ones and twos, but larger flocks like these are, apparently, not unusual. Such gatherings can be simply social, but can also improve their chances in the search for food, as well as for spotting predators, not that they have a lot of those while flying.
Males have a red gular sac at the throat. It makes them easy to identify, even at a distance.
My bird book notes that most Great Frigatebirds seen in Hawaii are females or juveniles, but I regularly see males, which are easily identified by the red gular sac on their throat. This sac can be impressively inflated during courtship.
Posted for Bird of the Week LVIII. See more responses here.