Killin’ Time, Waipi’o, Birdwatching

November 7 2010 by Darrin.

I’m trying a slightly different format today with the blog.  I usually “thumbnail” all the pictures, so they’re small and download quickly, but can be seen full size with a mouse-click.  However, I don’t really like the look of so many tiny images, so I’m posting a few larger photos.  They usually can’t be enlarged.  (Tiny thumbnails WILL still link to full sized images, tho’.)  I welcome any comments about this change, so fire away! 

You gotta love this.  The forecast today is “clear” here…

When you click the “Hourly” forecast at the bottom, you get the details, and no where does it say “Clear”…

We’re still in that “Mostly Cloudy” range right now, at 10:45.  See…

And the rain is still coming down…

Right now, Anna’s taking a nap and I’m waiting on the automatic fish feeder to release the morning portion of tilapia food.  There’s a Black Crowned Night Heron here who evidently also has a Timex, because he lands on the feeder every morning just a few minutes before the feeder does its thing…

When the feeder goes off, he jumps down and goes fishin’…

Today, however, he got skunked.  Clearly it’s called “fishing” and not “catching” for birds too, ‘cuz here he is, hungry afterwards (he seems to be picky - there are a few carp in here and he avoids them.  The tilapia are what he’s after!)…

Yesterday, Anna and I drove up the coast to see Waipi’o Valley.  It’s been recommended to us, and we were really looking forward to it.  Generally, the weather gets better as you go north, but this was the scene the whole way…

We arrived at the scenic overlook, and this killer view…

Blackberry to the rescue again!  (We currently have internet for the PC courtesy the ‘Berry, and it got us off the lava in the dark the other night too .)   With a few bars of CDMA signal at the overlook, we downloaded the following picture of the valley, so we could say we saw it…

Just as we were about to leave, the fog broke up and we could be sure the scene on the Blackberry existed in real life!  Note the waterfall pouring off the cliff in our image (when you enlarge it), but not seen in the shot off the Web…

Well, in an hour and a half, we’re off to the Puna District again, to try and see the lava.  On the way, we’ll swing by Wal*Mart, for an LED head-light.  We won’t be making THAT mistake twice!

Posted in Hawaii, 2010 | 1 Comment »