Kauai 2011 day 2: whale watch

Sunrise the second morning:



This was the same day we made our first trip to the Kilauea Lighthouse, and it was a fruitful day photography-wise. In addition to these whale photos and my shots of an albatross in flight, I captured several other sequences involving a whale leaping from the water. While the ones I posted last year were my favorites, I thought these two jumps also came out fairly well. First, a whale flopping onto its back:














And then there's this sequence, which I thought was interesting because the whale's head was pointed toward the shore, providing a slightly different perspective:











I just liked how this shot of an albatross against the ocean came out:



Some sharp-eyed visitors to the lighthouse managed to spot a seal lying on the wet rocks; it took me a little while to pick it out with the binoculars, after which I spent another minute or two finding it again through my viewfinder in order to take a photo:



If you place your mouse pointer in the center of the photo, it should be right on the seal. And just in case you don't believe it's there, a cropped-in look at the same pic:



At lunchtime, I spotted a pair of Common Mynas on the wires across the street. It's a bird I've never seen anywhere else, but on Kauai they're as common as sparrows:





This was probably my favorite of the bunch:



And a closer look at a Myna as it hunted for dropped morsels of food:



A sparrow I caught as it took flight off a branch:



This Red-crested Cardinal was kind enough to pose prettily amidst the pink blossoms of the tree we sat under:





One of the more daring Cardinals came pretty close to me; I really didn't mind:



Finally, a pair of shots of a Red-crested Cardinal atop a nearby building. I loved the contrast of the red head against the deep blue of the sky, and how the shape of the feathers is echoed in the material used to make the roof. However, if I were to ever make a print of this, I'd probably Photoshop out the dark blurry wire that crosses above the bird's head: