Kauai 2014: day 8

I once again took it easy, photography-wise, the day after adding a few hundred pics to my collection. It also happened to be a rainy day, which limited my options to what I could photograph around the house from the lanai. Fortunately for me, I'm able to start this post much as I ended yesterday's, with a white-rumped shama that decided to do some singing in a bush fairly close by:

On the right, a rather bedraggled-looking young Java sparrow:

A female white-rumped shama in a tree across the yard:

And finally, a garden spider hanging out on its rather wet web; these spiders are large, and it can give you a start the first time you see one, but they're harmless to humans:

Kauai 2014: day 4

Quiet day at the house; as I recall, I was still working on recovering from jet lag, and it wasn't the best day weather-wise. So I wandered out onto the lanai, where I spotted a spider building a web. After I bit of research, I think I've identified it as a spiny orbweaver. Regardless, it was fascinating to watch it work, and I think I got some fairly decent shots along the way.

We interrupt this cold front...

...to bring you some flowers, photographed last August in my mom's gardens.

First up, a little moth surrounded by echinacea: 

Bees getting busy:

I like how you can seen the pollen coating the bee's legs in this shot:

A shot of some tiger lilies:

And finally, an iPhone shot that I thought came out really nicely, lens flare and all:

La bella luna

Just wanted to share a photo of the special visitor I noticed outside of our office building this morning: the beautiful Luna Moth. I obviously can't be positive, but there seem to be a few shreds of its cocoon still clinging to its back and one of its left legs:

Very, very cool thing to see.

Kauai 2011 day 8: Webs, Waves, and Waterfowl

Day 8 didn't involve any field trips on our part, but I had absolutely no problem finding things to photograph right where we were staying. A morning walk along the paths between the various vacation units led me to stumble upon this spider web, beautifully backlit in the morning sunshine:



A slightly closer look at both the web and the delicate veins of one of the leaves it's attached to:



One final close-up of the web:



Of the wave photos I took during the day, and that number was not small, this is the one that ultimately caught my eye as I went back through my pictures. It's not what one typically thinks of when imagining a wave by any means; in fact, it looks more like it folds in on itself rather than breaking when the wave reached its apex, but I really like the lines on both the top of the wave and in the trough it folds into:





In these last two, I especially love the lines that curve along the top of the wave:





Don't ask me how, but in the afternoon I was standing on our balcony and managed to spot a small bird working along the shoreline. At first I assumed it was a sandpiper of some sort, but after spending the last several minutes researching to figure out what kind of sandpiper it might be, I'm now leaning toward this being a Wandering Tattler. If someone else can make a positive i.d. one way or the other, don't hesitate to let me know:



On the hunt:





Lucky catch of the bird with a drop of water on the end of its beak:



Sorting through the sand:



And hustling out of the way as a larger wave comes in:



Finally, I just thought this was kind of pretty:

Rock stars

Today I have another group of photos I took while staying at Mom and Dad's a couple of weeks ago, these from a walk in the woods I took with Kaylee. A stream cutting down the mountainside during Irene deposited a truckload of rocks and gravel by the sugarhouse I photographed a couple of times last year. As I wandered around along the rocks, I noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye, and was able to get some nice shots of a grasshopper against a fairly neutral background:





Based on my multiple viewings of A Bug's Life, I'm pretty sure this particular grasshopper is in the middle of molting:



The crickets I saw were a bit more skittish than the grasshoppers, making it a bit harder to get close enough for a decent shot. Still, I managed to pull off what I thought were a couple of good ones:





Finally, a snake that darted out from under a rock I was about to step on:



Unlike the garter snake I saw earlier this summer, this dark brown/black snake (a coloring I've never seen in person before) was rather camera shy. As a result, this is one of the few in-focus pics I got of it:

Monarchs

On my way back home from photographing the flood waters last Monday, I noticed a pair of female Monarch butterflies working the flowers out in front of St. James church. Nice sunny day, colorful flowers, butterfly... yeah, no way I wasn't taking pictures.

I love how the butterfly seems to be looking right at me in this one:



A wide shot of the pair:



A couple of shots of this butterfly's wings:





A bumblebee and a butterfly sharing real estate for a moment:



I really liked how the colors in this shot came out:



A good look at a butterfly using her proboscus to dine:



My best shot that day of a butterfly's wings; I wish there'd been a bit more light on the shot, but you take what you can get:



And in this last shot, I really liked how the wing was backlit—it reminded me of stained glass: