What we saw this week.

    The week began pleasantly enough at the pier.  As Sandra dropped me off, we were lucky to catch a nicely endowed lady in a miniature key lime pie bikini unloading her paddle board.  By the time I made it down to the sand, Venus had positioned her seven year old daughter on the bow of her board and was paddling out for a rendezvous at Milf Island with Jack Donaghy.

     Sometimes living in Kona can be a rough job, but somebody's gotta do it. 

    The water was clear and cold, still hovering around 75 nippy degrees Fahrenheit.  Which apparently isn't bad if you've just flown in from Sioux Falls, but makes me glad for my neoprene vest.  By the second swim buoy I spotted a small Stout Moray racing across the sand.  This guy was white, with spotty black markings, an unmistakable pattern.  I turned and followed him.  I couldn't keep up and he disappeared beneath a coral.  Luckily he was replaced by a huge pictus moray.

The Ironman side is a good place for pictus.

   The pictus is a fairly ugly eel, but they grow big.  This guy must have been four feet long and as big around as my thigh.  (That probably says more about my old white guy wimpy thighs than it does about the eel.)   He swam around and around, permitting me several close approaches.  All of which begs the question, even though this is not the most infamous species, how close does one want to get to a great big, actively hunting eel?  On this day I figured about three feet was close enough.    

   I didn't get a great picture, but on the other hand I didn't get bit.  This large gray eel is unusual anywhere else, but quite dependable on the Ironman side of Kailua pier.  Over the next 40 minutes I saw two more of the unattractive brutes.  

   Additionally, my swim turned up a cushion star and a nice pair of oval butterflies.

Snowflake Moray Eel, Kahalu'u March 2023

   A few days later I went swimming at Kahalu'u.  It was early afternoon and the place was teeming with full contact snorkelers. Luckily, there ware also a few fish.  Right at the opening I had a close encounter with the male Pearl Wrasse.  Once again he was cooperative enough for photography, but you surely had your fill of that fellow in the last blog.

    A little ways away, I spotted a tiny Snowflake Moray.  He was hiding in some rocky rubble, but poked his nose out for a picture.  He was just a little bit bigger around than my thumb and the picture was taken at about one foot.  Little danger of this shy fellow causing any damage! 

   Considering all the people in the bay, there was a nice group of fish on this sunny afternoon.  Rockmovers were plentiful.  There were a few big adults, at least two dragon wrasses and several youngsters who had just left that infant stage behind.  I tried to take a movie of one of these adolescents, still bearing the "antennae" but otherwise looking like an adult, he was  flopping this way and that, as if he were still a dragon and might be mistaken for a piece of seaweed.  My movie making failed, so use your imagination. 

Hawaiian Dascyllus adolescent, Kahalu'u 2023

   There were several Hawaiian Dascyllus babies with the bright white spot on the flank and a blue dot on the forehead.  With patience I got a flash picture of one of these guys hiding in a depression in a coral.  Around the far side of the bay, by the Rescue Shelter, I found a really nice adolescent.  He was actually fairly cooperative and I thought I had a shot worthy of a Christmas card.  But when I got to shore I discovered that the camera didn't quite achieve perfect focus.  Rats!  Anyway here is a pretty good effort at an adolescent dascyllus.

All of which brings us up to Sunday.  Sandra and I go to the Lutheran Church Which offers the opportunity to sit outside with a group of parishioners who fear that inside poses a greater risk for Covid.  In addition to the reduced risk of contracting an infectious disease, the view from the lanai, where us cowards watch the service on a big screen TV, can be pretty good for wildlife observation.   Recently, while Pastor Brian droned on, us outsiders were treated to a pair of Hawaiian Hawks as they performed an aerial mating ritual.  

Stareye Parrot imitating Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus.

   On this morning, we had sung the closing hymn and Pastor Brian was introducing visitors to the day's service.  At this moment, out on the lawn, twenty feet away, I spotted a butterfly We see lots of butterflies from our choice lanai seats: bronzy monarchs, yellow sulfurs and citrus orange Gulf Frits.  But this butterfly was black.  And he had unmistakable red in the wings.  A goddam Red Admiral!  

   "Look at the butterfly!" I directed my fellow lepidopterist, as I bound from my seat and chased it around the corner of the building.   The back of the Lutheran church has a wonderful border of flowers, which I perused with intensity, albeit to no avail.  I paused momentarily to question the pastor's son, who was hanging out, with poorly disguised ennui, with the much younger son of the lady who directs the choir. Suffice it to say, Calvin had not seen the butterfly. In fact, one got the impression that Calvin wished he were anywhere else.

Not a Red Admiral, but a Red Labrid Wrasse

   And so, I snuck back into the tail end of church, where Sandra had explained to our fellow Christians the importance of a Red Admiral.  I mean, All God's Creatures.  Right?

    Two days ago (see? we're getting to the end.)  Sandra and I went to Ho'okena.   We like to say that this is our favorite beach, but as I was injured on our return to Hawai'i, we hadn't been there in many months.  It was a beautiful morning and a little before nine o'clock it was time to hit the water.  

   The surf was small, the water crystal clear.  If only there had been a few more fish it would have been
perfect.  As it was, we easily got the big four, Potters, Flame Angelfish, Gilded Triggerfish and Garden Eels.  These are all seen straight out from the far end of the sandy beach.  After you see the angels in the coral, swim out another twenty yards, turn left and look for the garden eels in the sand, thirty feet down.  

   After we saw those special, if dependable, fish, we really didn't see anything great.  We did see a red labrid in the shallows and a small linckia starfish. It was, unfortunately, that sort of day.

  We decided that nothing could round out the morning better than stopping at Greenwell's Coffee for our picnic lunch.  It had been months and we were sad to find that the large tree that shaded the garden adjacent to the tasting pavilion was no more.  The tasting staff told us that it had cracked in a recent windstorm, requiring removal.. This was a big old tree and it will take many years to grow another.  Treebeard wept.

   After lunch we repaired to the nearby orange tree, renowned as the home of a tribe of Jackson's Chameleons.   The lady in the tasting room said no one had seen one yet on this day and asked,if we found one, to bring her word  so that she might worship it also.  With that sort of encouragement, we did our best work.  As we searched, we enjoyed the heavenly fragrance of orange blossoms. (Better than frankincense and myrrh.).   Aroma therapy was never so effective, and in a few minutes I found a fine male chameleon, horns at the ready, in the upper branches of the orange tree.  

Jackson's Chameleon at Greenwell's Coffee.

    As Sandra was preparing the cell phone camera, and our attention was thus diverted, the duplicitous lizard moved.  Woe is me!  It took another few minutes to find him a foot or so away, now clinging in almost vertical attitude to a branch.  While the lizard contemplated the heavens, we took a few choice, if somewhat backlit, shots, the best of which you see here.  The coffee docent was suitably impressed and we even had the opportunity to show the beast to one of our fellow java enthusiasts.

   The week ended on that happy note, with a cup of Greenwell's joe, a ham and cheese on ciabatta and a delightful look at a most curious horned lizard.  Sandra and I hope your week was equally delightful.

jeff