The old Kohala Girls School sits on land at ‘Iole in North Kohala. ‘Iole is one of the few remaining ahupua‘a, a pie-shaped division of land stretching from the mountain to the ocean. It’s now managed by Kohala Institute as a retreat center and the recently renovated school is part of that setup.
I like the geometric order of the building – the squares of the windows, the straight lines of the roof and siding – as well as the light and shadows.
During a recent hike on the Nāpau Trail in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, one accompaniment was the throb of helicopter engines. The active flow from Pu’u O’o vent, and its ultimate outpouring into the ocean, is a great attraction for visitors and locals alike.
One way of seeing these events is on a helicopter tour and, as I sat at the Nāpau overlook, I noticed there was a clear order to those helicopter visits. A pair would arrive from the west, one a bit behind the other. One would circle the vent, the other visit the ocean entry. Then they’d switch. After 10 or 15 minutes, the two helicopters would head off to the northeast and soon after, the next pair would arrive.
For more information about Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, go to nps.gov/havo/. For more information about Kilauea Volcano and it’s eruptions, go to hvo.wr.usgs.gov/kilauea/history/main.html.
I’m not sure one could call cows and cattle egrets friends. When cows graze, cattle egrets snaffle bugs stirred up in that process, but I don’t know of anything the egrets do for the cows in return.
However, this photo has a friendly feel to it. I picture the cow saying, ‘So you can fly, right? Could you teach me how?’ The egrets look suitably nonplussed at the suggestion.
Feel free to suggest your own caption in the comments.
At first I thought this was something straight out of Doctor Dolittle, a pushmi-pullyu eel. Alas, no. Instead, it’s two whitemouth moray eels wedged into the same space behind a clump of coral. While whitemouth moray eels are a fairly common sight in the water, this is the first and only time I’ve seen two together. I don’t know whether this proximity was related to breeding. Perhaps they were just helping each other stay warm! Looks like they must be pretty good friends.
This is the last of my series of posts in response to this week’s WordPress photo challenge on the theme of ‘evanescent.’
Picture the scene: I’m sitting quietly in my living room when a small shape flits past a window accompanied by a harsh chittering. I jump up, grab my camera and rush outside. As I do so, I turn the camera on, adjust settings and figure out the best place to intercept the bird that just flew by. I go around the house and sure enough, the sound is loud. And there it is, in the hedge. I raise the camera, but its gone. Over there now. I move, refocus. There it is again. I snap a photo. Gone again. I do this a couple more times, and then it goes quiet. There’s no more movement. The bird’s moved on.
Now repeat this scene, a couple of times a week and you have my experience with the red-billed leiothrix. It’s such a beautiful bird, but all my efforts had produced was a collection of photos of bits of wing, disembodied beaks, barely discernable blurry shapes, or just bare branches and leaves. The jittery, hyperactive birds were evanescent, quickly disappearing from sight time after time.
So imagine my surprise when this one showed up. It was one of a pair. The other one, true to its kind, instantly disappeared into a bush. But this one appeared not to have read the leiothrix operation manual. It stayed on this branch, in full view, for a couple of minutes. True, it wasn’t ever exactly stationary, it’s head going from side to side every two seconds. And it called out continuously, probably wanting to know why its partner was skulking in the bush. Somewhere the message must have got through because the bird joined its partner and the two of them, true to form, flitted off from branch to branch, through the hedge and disappeared from view.
This week’s posts are in response to the WordPress photo challenge on the theme of ‘evanescent.’
Sunsets are an evanescent event. They’re all different, depending on the clouds and the atmosphere and the weather. And where the sun goes down changes from day to day depending on the time of year. And to top it off, the colors, the composition, change from moment to moment as the sun sinks and the clouds move. There’s no ‘OK, it’ll be like this for the next 15 minutes.’ Instead it might vanish in a moment, diffusing into a previously unnoticed layer of haze on the horizon.
I like that unpredictability. I’ve driven down to a good viewing spot, lured there by promising weather and cloud formations, only to have the sunset be a damp squib. And then there have been other times when I’ve gone with low expectations and been treated to a cascade of color.
This photo was taken from the comfort of my lanai and I like the striking contrast of the bright and the dark at that moment in time. A few minutes later, it was all gone.
This week’s posts are in response to the WordPress photo challenge on the theme of ‘evanescent.’
In a previous photo challenge, I posted a photo of a ‘mountain of water.’ I’d been trying to capture waves breaking toward me and though that one didn’t break, it provided a surprising photo.
I mention this because a couple of days ago I was snorkeling and the surf was higher than I expected with visibility in the water consequently poor. I figured I wasn’t going to get any decent fish photos, but I thought I might get a nice surf shot. So I headed toward a deep spot close to shore where I could see the waves breaking toward me. I got to the spot and popped my head out of the water just in time to see a large breaking wave racing my way. It was probably the perfect shot, but sad to say, I lost my nerve. This was a big wave. I swam away, too late of course, and ended up in a froth of whitewater, pushing into my mask and up my nose. And then it was past.
I had to laugh. Truth is, I was never in danger. There’s enough space where I was that even this bigger wave wasn’t going to trouble me. But for that fleeting moment, I had serious doubts.
And this photo? Well, if the ‘mountain of water’ was too small, and my recent encounter too big, this wave was just right.
This week’s posts are in response to the WordPress photo challenge on the theme of ‘evanescent.’
This slice of rainbow, backed by pink clouds, fits the bill, I think. Fueled by an approaching shower of rain, it shone briefly bright, then quickly faded.
Graham's Island 