Bobcat in the Backyard

I saw this little guy in our backyard today.

Backyard Birds

I thought it would be fun to keep an ongoing list of which species of birds visit our backyard. I am only counting birds I get an image of on our property and if the birds are sexually dimorphic I will count each sex as a different bird. Here are the first four. 

1. Lesser Goldfinch Carduelis psaltria

 2. Spotted Towhee Pipilo maculatus

3. Western Scrub-Jay Aphelocoma californica

4. Band-tailed Pigeon Columba fascicata 

Rose-Ringed Parakeet

Most days I am home, I see parrots around our house. Today however, I spotted a different parrot species outside. This Rose-Ringed Parakeet is the third species of parrot I have found near our home. The parrot only stuck around for a few minutes so the shots below were the best I could get. The long turquoise tail is amazing on these birds.

Here are my photos of the other more common species I see around our house: 

Cayman at the Los Angeles Zoo

We have spent the last few days at the Los Angeles Zoo (which has undergone an amazing transformation the last 5 years). The zoo has been cleaned up, landscaped beautifully, and has a completely different feel than the old LA Zoo.  Cayman pretty much sleeps the entire time but its fun for us and the apparently the chimpanzees as well (see video).

Big Island Part 8: Not the Typical Snorkeling Adventure

For months I have been reading about South Point and I have found it is known for two things, large pelagic fish (swordfish, tuna, sharks, dolphinfish, jacks, etc) and a nasty current. The current at the point is apparently so strong since ancient times boats have tied to the cliff to avoid been swept away on a non-stop trip to Antarctica. This site was a little spooky, but I had to see what was under the surface. The photos tell the rest of the story.

South Point is the Southern most point in the entire United States and below the cliffs is crystal clear water. The figures below the water are large rocks (van size) about 30-50 feet under water. 

On the top of the cliff is several boat hoist used long ago to lower small boats into the waters below.

Near the boat hoists is this rusty ladder that takes you to the water 40 feet below. It swings in the wind and is made of rebar welded to tube steel. This ladder is usually used by cliff divers who climb back up after jumping to the water below.

Below the ladder is some ropes tied to the cliff and ladder to help anyone who is about to be swept away by the current. 

I threw my camera and fins over my shoulder and climbed down the ladder. The water seemed about 30-40 feet deep at the base of the ladder.

While down there, I did not detect much of a current, but I stayed near the rope just in case. A current pulling you from shore with no chance of rescue is too creepy for me to risk. 
 

Underwater the rope had some interesting life swimming near it. The small fish are baby jacks. They will hopefully grow to be several feet in length. The photo below also has a neat crab on the rope (look carefully).

 Below me was lots of neat fish and large boulders. If you look closely, you can see another ladder. It was kind of a discouraging site.

The hardest part was the climb back up. Here is a photo of the ladder from the water. Some of the ladder seemed a little shady.

This time, I really just wanted to see if I could get down there. With more rope and planning, it would be amazing to dive there. Maybe next time.

Big Island Part 7: Video from Deep Below & Awesome Playground

Yesterday, I found a cool small cave about 160 feet down. Unfortunately, it is difficult to take photos of videos that deep because the camera housing starts failing at around 120 feet due to the pressure pushing several buttons on the camera at once. I figured out a way to squeeze a few more out of the camera housing and took a flashlight down to the cave today. I was able to film some neat Hawaiian Longfinned Anthias. There are two videos and descriptions of what was going on below.

The first video you can see long wire corals as I am approaching the cave as well as several fish. The second video mainly features the anthias. The video is not too awesome as most of the functions on the camera were failing due to pressure.

The video starts at about 120 feet as I am swimming through a boulder field and coral rubble. In this area there is a little current and long wire corals grow. Around 45 seconds, you can see several wire corals. At 1:06, I hit the bottom at 162 feet and start filming the cave with my flashlight. At 1:40 you can see my depth at 162 feet and my dive computer starts warning me that I am too deep. The video ends as I approach the Hawaiian Longfinned Anthias. The male is the large one and females are the smaller ones behind them.

In other news, Shelley and I found the coolest playground. It features multi-level castles, bridges, and even ship. Everything is made of wood and very well done. We love the humpback weathervane. It was raining when I took these pictures, so they are not that great, but the park is massive and wonderful.

Big Island Part 6: Exploring the Island Caves, Zoo, Manta Rays, & Tiger Sharks

The last several days have been amazing! On Monday, Shelley and I got up early and drove nearly 300 miles exploring the island. This island is big. Here is the route we took. This took us through rolling green hills, cloud forest, dry wastelands, rainforest, lava flows, a zoo, and giant swells hitting a cliff.

 One of our first stops was a cave that continues for miles. I went 100 yards until I couldn't see the entrance and stopped trusting my flashlight. On my out I snapped this photo of Shelley at the entrance.

One of our favorite stops was at a zoo. There was less than 20 people at the whole zoo and the animals were very friendly. These nice donkeys walked over to us when we talked to them and let us pet their noses (which are as soft as a puppy's belly).

 This photo kind of reminds me of this. 

 They had a neat pigeon too.

This is the largest bromeliad I have ever seen. Between each leaf was a small ecosystem. These plants are what poison dart frogs breed in, but there are not any dart frogs on the big island.

 Here is Shelley next to a lava tree. This is the result of hot lava hitting a very moist large tree.

We found this wonderful state park (no one was there but us). The part is a huge Ironwood tree forest right on the ocean cliffs. The sea was angry.

 

Here are some of the waves and Shelley's "stay 50 feet from the cliff rule"

 

On Tuesday, we got more diving in and had maybe our most memorable experience with Green Sea Turtles from shore. Humuhumunukunukuapua'a (the Hawaiian state fish) are fairly easy to find, but difficult to photograph. I have several hundred bad photos of these fish where they are blurry and swimming away from my camera. When photographing fish, I have learned, many ignore you if you ignore them, but as soon as you face them, they swim away. I wanted a good triggerfish photo and I saw this fish in about 5 feet of water and he had just gulped up a huge scoop of sand (probably eating a crab) he turned to me and spit out the sand (through his gills) as I snapped his photo.

One of my favorite fish are anthais. These are some of the most colorful fish but usually live in places too deep to dive. I have been following another divers blog and he has wonderful long-finned anthais photos. He talked about a particular site he sees them and I followed his lead and found this little guy. This is the first one I have ever seen and he was not shy at all and allowed me to take tons of photos of him as he gulped plankton from the water. 

Some of the turtles here are not shy either. This one (which I think has been fed by people) would come over to Shelley's voice and rest his head near her feet. We didn't touch the turtle but did take good photos of it.

In other news, our dryer was broken in our original condo, so we were "upgraded" to a different condo. The view is more ocean and we can see the cruise ship that comes every Wednesday. Here is our view:

Thursday night was certainly a highlight of this trip. Here is the story: Shelley really wanted to do the night dive with Manta Rays here on the Big Island. To my surprise, Shelley suggested we just climb in the ocean after dark and swim several hundred yards around a point out to open sea to the spot the boats take the divers (which they charge $150 each). To be honest, it sounded pretty scary to me, swimming in the open ocean at night is a little intimidating, but I didn't tell Shelley it sounded scary. The photo below is Shelley getting her gear ready after dark. The shore was dark, so we tied glow sticks to each other and to the lava cliff we climbed in at to mark our exit route. The dive was amazing. The video below is amazing (its Shelley in it).

 

Earlier in the day, I got some great photos of a rare fish. And also a not so rare fish. If you learned to draw a fish in kindergarten, you probably learned to draw a fairly accurate Sleek Unicorn fish. These fish strangely look just like goldfish crackers. 

Whomever designed the fish of the world wanted to kill scuba divers. The most colorful amazing fish in Hawaii are mostly found in deep water that lures divers into depths that are dangerous to dive. The Hawaiian long-finned anthias is a perfect example and is usually found 100 feet or more below. The female is the most beautiful of the species (uncommon in the animal kingdom, except for humans of course).  The male is show a few post before this. I found this little fish swimming upside down near the ceiling of a small cave at about 100 feet down. 

The highlight of the trip from me, had to be seeing a tiger shark from shore. Seeing a tiger shark underwater is a rare event. I know divers with 12,000+ dives who have never seen one underwater. On this trip we have made Sandwich Island Divers (now out of business) our dive shop and the owner Steve has provided us with tons of tips and some awesome stories from his decades of diving here. He told us we had a good chance of seeing a tiger shark if we dove near the harbor. This "tip" kept me away from the harbor for most of our tip, but seeing the large groups of dolphins off shore eventually lured me into the water. The first dive was a little a spooky as I hoped I didn't run into a tiger shark (which grown up to 18 feet). The dive ended with no shark and no dolphins. Shelley refused to dive the site so the next day I headed out alone once again looking for dolphins. About 30 minutes into the dive I ran into a couple of divers who signaled to me they saw a shark, they pointed in the direction I was headed. I keep going in that direction and saw my first Fishers Angelfish (3 actually), but no shark or dolphins. After the dive Shelley and I walked over to some rocks near the dive site and I spotted a large dark figure swimming right off the rocks, "There it is!" I yelled to Shelley "Do you see it?" She did.

We spent the next several hours on the rocks watching a 14 foot tiger shark swimming around. He was hard to film with the glare on the water, but below is what we got. In the second video he grabs something at the surface (maybe a snorkel?). In the last few weeks, many divers here have seen the tiger underwater, but I not interested in seeing it alone. Diving alone in a know tiger shark territory is asking for it.

Big Island Part 2: First Dives

Within seconds of dropping below the surface a clear contrast to Maui diving emerged. There are more fish here, more diversity here, and healthier reefs here. The diving is simply better. Within five minutes, I saw more yellow tangs than I did in more than 100 dives on Maui. For example, I have never seen this on a dive this many yellow tangs:

The beautiful reef at this location drops down to at least 85 feet. I dove this site three times today and was impressed every dive. Highlights include finding several Tompsons Butterflyfish (which I have never seen before) and the elusive black morph of the longnosed butterflyfish.

I found this pair of Tompsons Butterflyfish 60 feet below at the end a reef. I have never seen this fish while diving. They are strangely easy to photograph and seem to pose everytime I approached them. 

  

I first became obsessed with the black longnosed butterflyfish when I found one 105 feet down off Molokini in 2008. Today, I found another 69 feet down off the Kona Coast. This fish is rare except possible off the Kona Coasts. I hope to see more of them.

One thing I did not see was any turtles, that was until I climbed out of the water and found one sunning on the beach next to Shelley. 

The flame angelfish is one of the most beautiful of all Hawaiian fish. At the end of a reef (where the reef meets the sand), in 80 feet of water I glimpsed at what I thought might be a more common potter's angelfish. The fish was hiding deep in some finger coral and would only emerge for half a second before hiding again. My second look I immediately recognized the broad black stripes. It was a flame angel. My heart started beating faster as I thought, "I just have a to get a photo of it as proof". Here are the photos I got: 

 First Glimps

The good news about flame angels is apparently they stay in the same location. While underwater, I photographed the surroundings so I could make a map to find these (I think there was a pair) fishes again. With the current swell conditions, I have to wait four days to dive this location again.