Autograph collectors

I was at Spencer Beach Park when I heard bees. Looking up, I saw them all over an open flower on one of the trees. I’ve never seen so many bees on the same flower at the same time. As they left, others would be moving forward to join the party.

The tree was an Autograph Tree (Clusia rosea), which is native to the Caribbean and is something of an invasive species here. It gets its name from its thick leaves with a thin green covering. Kids scratch their names into the leaves and watch as they grow with the leaves!

Posted for Becky’s Squares: Move Forward, Reconstruct, Renew, and/or are Burgeoning. See more responses here.

Triton’s Trumpet

It’s been a long time since I saw a Triton’s Trumpet, so I was happy to spot this one soon after I got into the water recently. However, it didn’t look like it was in a good situation, shell down in the rocks and the opening exposed. I’m not one to interfere with nature too much so I took photos and carried on with my swim. When I returned, I looked for it again and found it right side up and all well.

Triton’s Trumpets are extremely large marine snails. Even when I first saw it, in its precarious position, there was probably no danger. Triton’s Trumpets have no predators in nature. The biggest threat to them is, of course, us humans, who covet them for their very attractive shells.

A downside of this is that these snails are one of the few things that eat Crown-of-Thorns Stars, which are significant destroyers of coral. So going out and buying one of these shells contributes in a direct way to the disappearance of coral reefs.

One thing I have yet to see, but would very much like to see, is a Triton’s Trumpet going after a Crown-of-Thorns Star. That’s because they’re considered to be very speedy snails. Even though a Crown-of-Thorns Star can detect the presence of a Triton’s Trumpet and get a head start, the snail can run it down, moving forward with considerable purpose!

Posted for Becky’s Squares: Move Forward, Reconstruct, Renew, and/or are Burgeoning. See more responses here.

The Numbers Game #21

Sometimes, the way to move forward is unclear, as when navigating these roads at South Point.

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 142. Captions are on the photos. You can see more responses here.

Also posted for Becky’s Squares: Move Forward, Reconstruct, Renew, and/or are Burgeoning. See more responses here.

Cattle and their egrets near Hawi Wind Farm.

A lunar eclipse a few years ago.

Two Asian Swallowtail butterflies frolic on the wing.

A Whitemouth Moray Eel.

Acute Halfbeaks swim just below the surface in the waters off the Kohala coast.

They walk the line

Recently, I went down to Spencer Beach Park for a morning walk. The area south of the park was torched by a wildfire back in August of 2023, which I wrote about here. Since then the power lines have been restored and a good deal of clearing has been going on.

In that previous post, many burned trees are visible, but these have now been removed, as has most everything else. It looks like the area is getting a new start, but what that start is, I don’t know.

On this day, what captured my attention was this group of workers on the project. I first saw them heading south along the coast, then picked them up again on their return journey. Much of that time, they moved forward steadily, and evenly spaced. It was a Monday, so maybe they were walking through the areas they’d be working on, and discussing what they’d be doing.

Posted for Becky’s Squares: Move Forward, Reconstruct, Renew, and/or are Burgeoning. See more responses here.

Muddy waters

Sunday Stills Monthly Color Challenge is ‘Cobalt Blue.’ See more responses here.

I had a post all lined up, until I was called into work yesterday to do some clean up after flash floods swept through several places, including where I work. On the drive down, I came on this scene.

The cobalt blue waters of the Pacific were being overrun by muddy waters swept into the sea by flooding. I’ve never seen such a sharp line before and, as I watched, I could see it moving forward, to the north. On that coast, the current generally runs in that direction, and a swell from the south was probably helping it along too.

The muddy waters entered the sea down by Kawaihae and when I first saw them, they’d almost reached Lapakahi, a distance of around 12 miles. When I returned home, about three hours later, the brown water had moved up off Kapaa Park, another two and a half miles north.

It will take a day or two for the ocean to clear again, as the waters mingle or are eased away by offshore currents. In the meantime, Kawaihae is digging itself out from the copious amounts of mud left behind by the floodwaters.

Also posted for Becky’s Squares: Move Forward, Reconstruct, Renew, and/or are Burgeoning. See more responses here.

Orchid Tree flower burgeoning

An Orchid Tree flower starts to open.

Posted for Becky’s Squares: Move Forward, Reconstruct, Renew, and/or are Burgeoning. See more responses here.

Give the kid a good licking

A cow cleans her newborn calf.

Posted for Becky’s Squares: Move Forward, Reconstruct, Renew, and/or are Burgeoning. See more responses here.

Renewing renewable energy

Wind turbines are a good source of renewable energy around here, given how much the wind blows. But sometimes those turbines wear out and need renewing. Here, new blades lie next to a couple of turbines, waiting for installation.

This is part of a recent burst of repair and improvements going on at the Hawi Wind Farm, I think because of an extension to its power purchase agreement with Hawaiian Electric Co..

Posted for Becky’s Squares: Move Forward, Reconstruct, Renew, and/or are Burgeoning. See more responses here.