Butterflyfish and Butterflies: North to Kapa'au

    A few days ago we made our way north to Kawaihae.  In the process we passed two dependable sights.  Two miles north of Costco, at the corner of Hulikoa Drive, is a herd of goats.  Sandra loves these goats and this time she got me to slow down for a photo op.  You will notice that the goat is standing in front of a sign proclaiming the general area to be Kohanaiki.  This is the name of the beach, about a mile makai from the highway that is home to Kailua Kona's most famous surf break, Pine Trees.

If you're not a goat, you better be a surfer.  Or filthy rich. Photo SKG

  There is now a traffic light at this intersection, but it is not there to help the surfers.  Over the past five years moneyed interests have built a fancy residential resort ....so fancy that they won't let the riff raff,  among which you can apparently count your humble correspondent, access for a free peek. The road, as far as the turn to that resort, is much improved over the dirt track that provided access up until ten years ago.  Pine Trees, at the south end of Kohanaiki Beach has been saved and one can park, as of old, and walk to Kohanaiki Beach Park.  But one best not attempt to breech the security at the Kohanaiki Private Club Community. 

    The surfers, by the way, mutter that the improved road allows the hoi polloi (like me) to make it to what was once their secluded surfing beach.  This is sort of like the Bart Simpson paradox.  You're damned if your rich and your damned if you're not.

Oval Butterflyfish, extreme juvenile.  Note the hatchet shape.

     Thirty miles further north we ran across our next unusual, yet dependable, sight.  I have fought with my conscience for months about reporting this, so please do not think too badly of me when I tell you this story.  There is a person who we see every time as we race north to Kawaihae.  This person, that may be a lady of a certain age (but its sort of hard to tell) camps in the scrub forest adjacent to the highway about a mile south of the turn into Hapuna Beach Park.  Sometimes, especially in the early morning, we see this person hanging her tarps and bedding on a scrubby tree.  Later in the day, we see her sitting in a lawn chair adjacent to her cart full of belongings on the shoulder of the highway, in a spot where a cut through a rolling hill provides some shade.  Only once have we seen what appeared to be someone supporting this person. 
Suffice it to say, there is no food or water anywhere near this encampment.  I do not wish to disrupt her life, but this person is as much a fixture of a trip to Kawaihae as the LST landing. 

Oval Butterfly, approximately ten weeks, a well rounded individual.

    Up in Kawaihae we met with our friends.  Hai and Lottie were running that morning, Marla was going for a walk and Peter was going out on the ocean side to count fish.  Baby Naia was doing what seven month old babies do, taking it all in.  Sandra and I were going to document the developing Oval Butterflyfish.   

    Out on the first platform, we found our fish.  Peter had warned us that there was now a second keiki, this one relatively newly hatched.  As before these fish stuck mostly to the inside of the cauliflower coral, so if my pictures seem less than perfect, its not because I had lots of opportunity for better efforts.  The baby is quite small, probably less than an inch in length.  You will note that she has a very pronounced hatchet shape.  Even at this beginning stage of development she is apparently able to dine on coral polyps.  

Juvenile Jack Swims near Sandra's Glove.

    The older fish, who must be at least ten weeks old at this point, has filled out.  One might say that she has achieved her existential destiny and become oval.  What she has not done is become more gregarious, at least as far as photography is concerned.  It took all of fifteen minutes, possibly more, to get this picture.  

    I between taking pictures of the two oval butterflyfish keikis, we took a tour of the three platforms, seeing very little.  Of course, a weak day at Kawaihae dwarfs almost any day in the Kailua area.  Two trembling nudibranchs, an albino feather duster worm, milletseed butterflies and all you can eat baby Hawaiian dascyllus.  La de da.

   One thing that was different was an encounter with a baby jack. One doesn't see these small fish inshore.  They have compressed bodies and are yellowish with black stripes.  The only time I have seen them is offshore with Deron Verbeck, congregating around flotsam. I was working on the makai side of the second platform when the small fish swam right into my face and didn't want to go away.  It was so close that it was hard to photograph.  Shortly after that encounter, I thought it would be interesting to take a movie of a school of goatfish and circle past the pylons.  This video finished with Sandra sans head but with the tiny jack circling around her.  Sadly, I can't get the

The ventral surface of the Gulf Fritillary Butterfly.

video to load on Blogger, so I am showing you a picture that is a bit head on near Sandra's glove. Its not a bad picture and you can certainly tell how small it is.  You can see the video on my Facebook page, where longer videos load.

 https://www.facebook.com/jeffrey.hill.7758/

    Back ashore I discussed this fish with Peter who supplied the idea that it was a very juvenile jack.  Research in my library and on the internet suggests that this is indeed the case, but gives no clue as to just which jack it might be. Clubs diamonds, Island or ulua or spades.  

Gulf Fritillary Agraulis vanillae.  Kapa'au October 2020

    Speaking of Peter. After swimming we headed up separately to their estate in Kapa'au.  Two miles past the statue of King Kamehmeha, turn right and hope for the best..  For months Marla has been tantalizing me with tales of butterflies, possibly of the genus Vanessa.  As it turned out, Marla has a garden full of what to the uninitiated looks like red clover on steroids.  The resident botanist points out that, as this plant has leaves coming off at the same spot on both sides, it can't be clover.  

    The butterflies of which she was the most proud turned out to be Gulf Fritillaries Agraulis vanillae (Linnaeus).  I had about a handful of gulf frit sightings under my belt, but this was spectacular.  Nectaring on the red blossoms, these handsome butterflies gave us an infinite number of chances for a great photo.  Perhaps more than any other butterfly commonly seen on these Very Sandwich Islands, the gulf frit exhibits a huge difference between the dorsal and ventral surface of his wings.  (Of course the Kamehmeha butterfly has very different surfaces, as well, but it is hardly commonly seen, especially on our side of the Big Island.)  Such a beautiful butterfly, no wonder Marla thought it must be a Vanessa.

   A number of butterflies are named "fritillary", which refers to a checkered pattern, usually on the

The not so Fiery Skipper nectars on the psuedo-clover

ventral surface of the wings.  People who apply common names to insects do not attempt to name them with any taxonomic goal in mind. This is to say, these fritillary butterflies are not related to each other, they just have spotted wings. 

    

   There were also some hairstreaks and skippers thrown in for a little variety.  So in addition to the two luscious pictures of the gulf frits, which is also known as the passion butterfly (it employs lilikoi for its host plant both in Hawaii and in its native Caribbean home) we present to you a nice photo of a  Fiery Skipper, Hylephila phyleus.  I may have seen this chubby little butterfly before, but had not been able to identify it;  this picture is text book.  In the picture he doesn't look very fiery, but in fact the dorsal surface of his wings were a dusty orange.

Peter Peels a Scrumptious Jamaican Tangelo.

    As you may recall, the highlight of an afternoon at Chateau Krottje is the swag.  On this day we walked away with a few starts of the psuedo-clover, papayas, a citrus fruit shaped in folds like a bell pepper  and two fruits the size of a lemon but with a smooth skin.  Isn't a tropical garden wonderful?  The odd shaped fruit that Peter plucked for our tasting pleasure may be an Ugli fruit, also known as a Jamaican tangelo.  The Ugli fruit is a naturally occurring hybrid of tangerine, orange and grapefruit.  Wikipedia says it tends to taste like tangerine, which corresponds nicely with what we enjoyed.  The small smooth fruits might be  pomelos.  I suggest you show up at Marla's fruit bar for a tasting.

   As we were getting ready to go, we talked seriously about putting Deron Verbeck to work.  We could fill the boat with cautious friends, see some birds and maybe score a pod of pilot whales.  So stay tuned.

 jeff