
I saw this Black Witch Moth resting on the trunk of a palm and liked the backdrop of palm fronds.

I saw this Black Witch Moth resting on the trunk of a palm and liked the backdrop of palm fronds.


Royal Palms (Roystonea regia) are impressive trees. They grow up to 70 feet high, and are always upright. Their gray trunks are topped by a crown of leaves and, unlike Coconut Palms, they’re not going to drop bombs on your head while taking the top photo.

When I have time on my way to work, I like to stop in Kawaihae and go for an early morning walk. A favorite is to drive to Pelekane Beach and walk to Spencer Beach Park. Those days are gone! The flash floods from a few weeks back took care of that.
For starters, the road is still closed. I can see piles of dirt and debris through the locked access gates. But even if I could access the road, half of Pelekane Beach is gone too. The floods whooshed through the lagoon behind the beach and took a huge amount of sand with it. So now there’s no lagoon, half a beach, and a lot of trees in the bay.
It may be that the powers that be will bring in some sand to restore the former beach. That’s what’s happened at nearby Hapuna Beach, which also lost a section of its sand. In the meantime I will have to explore some new options.


This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Red, White, & Blue.’ See more responses here.
Here’s my selection this week with captions on the photos.







This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Landscapes.’ See more responses here.
There’s a bit of everything on the Big Island, so these are just few of the landscapes to be seen here. Captions on the photos.










Entering beautiful downtown Hawi (all one block of it) there’s a gully to one side of the road. It’s a steep drop into it, but there’s lots of vegetation to break one’s fall and to cover up the odds and ends dumped there. We get a lot of rain up here, so the vegetation thrives including this palm, all shiny and drooping from the last downpour.

These were at Mauna Kea Resort when I went down there for an evening snorkel.

I don’t know what kind of palm this is, so I don’t know if this is what the trunk is supposed to look like or if this is something growing on it. I’ve been digging around on the internet, but haven’t found the answer yet. Any ideas?