The rest of the photos from Hawaii.

Here are the rest of the photos worth looking at from the Hawaii trip.  You will probably notice there are not a lot of palm tree/ beach photos.  This is because I don't really enjoy being burned to a crisp on a beach.  I cant sit on a beach and read a book and find that even slightly enjoyable.  I also don't find the typical beach a particularly stimulating place to shoot photos.  Ill start with a couple of my pregnant wife. 

And another of Susan on the beach.

I did the hike out to Kalulau which was very enjoyable and well worth the trip.  It claims to be 11.5 miles one way, but I think its likely a little less than that.  I would guess about 10.  Either way the trail mile markers are defiantly not accurate.  I did the hike out one day and slept next to the beach and hiked out the next day.

The last part of the trail down to the beach.

The coast line here is very rugged.  Apparently that does not stop the goats from enjoying the view. 

An evening view of the stars from Kalalau beach.   

 A very pretty morning after a rainy night. 

 Part of the coastline.

There are plenty of small creeks along the hike.  

 And a few more birds.  The Nene is a native Hawaiian goose.  It is endangered, but has been reintroduced to Kauai and is subsequently doing quite well. 

This is a Hawaiian coot.  Another native species. 

The negative tides create great feeding opportunities for birds.  This night heron was fishing as we were wading about on the beach 40 yards away.  I made for a great set of photos. 

My favorite, maybe from the entire trip. 

One more bird.  The great frigate bird is an incredible bird that can say in the air for a week.  They have the highest sing surface area to body weight ratio of any bird which likely allows them to spend a lot of time catching thermal updrafts so they don't have to flap their wings much.  Another interesting fact is that they cant take off from a flat surface.  If they land in the ocean they can not take off again.  They pluck fish from the sea in flight.  

More Hawaiian Birds on Kauai

 Yesterday I finally found the place to see some native Hawaiian birds.  The taro fields here in Hanalei are filled with marsh birds and of course plenty of the introduced species, but the five minutes that is was not dumping rain did make for some good photo time.

Red crested cardinal

Black capped night heron

Alae 'Ula (Hawaiian Gallinule)

Hawaiian Stilt

Pacific Golden Plover

wedge tailed shearwater

Erckel's Francolin

Wandering Tattler

Some Birds of Kauai.

I have spent the last few days shooting photos of birds here on Kauai.  Its nice to be able to shoot photos of birds I have never seen before.  Keep in mind that most of these birds although pretty are actually introduced species to the Hawaiian Islands, and that over 25% of the native birds on Kauai have become extinct.

I will post more photos to this post as I shoot them. 

Lets start with a couple of birds that are natives.

And one in flight.  

And a brown booby

 The Albatross might be the most awkward bird I have ever seen, they are slow and clumsy. 

 Then I saw one fly.  This bird might be the most graceful bird I have ever seen fly.  From the moment this bird took off it never once flapped its wings.

Im not one to disturb nesting birds, but i walked up on this one accidentally.  I shot one photo and left. 

I am still working on getting a good photo of a great frigate bird, but its not the easiest bird to capture in the lens. 

And a non native species.  The cattle egret.  These are everywhere here.

Female white rumped shama

Male white rumped shama

hwamei, melodious laughingthrush

Red Crested Cardinal.

Ok I have to admit I am having a really hard time finding any native birds in this place.  The introduction of many non native species to the Hawaiian islands has decimated many of the natives.  The hike i did over the last two days consisted of sightings of Hawaiian wildlife such as the feral cat, feral goat, domesticated chicken, rats and mice.  I should admit however, that I am staying in a house in Princeville.  Due to a generous friend lodging was free.  Unfortunately Princeville is pretty much an environmental catastrophe of a housing development that would be best off washed in to the Pacific Ocean.  I was super excited to here that the main resort here went bankrupt which as far as i'm concerned is what goes around comes around.  Oh well, I guess I will concentrate on how pretty the non native birds are. 

Hummingbirds

The cold weather creates a challenge for small birds, and for the last few days it has been below freezing.  The hummingbird is the smallest of the small birds that we see here in Washington with an average weight of about 4g (a nickle weighs 5g) there is not a lot of mass to freeze.  For them this means they must feed almost constantly in order to have enough calories to stay alive.  For me this means that I have no trouble bringing them in to the feeder and shooting photos of them from the warmth of my kitchen.  Warmth being relative since the window has to be open.  I took this opportunity to practice stopping motion with a flash unit rather than the camera shutter since no camera has a shutter speed fast enough to stop the motion of a hummingbirds wings.  Here are some of the results.   

This fist shot was lit entirely with the flash using no ambient light.  Hence the black background.

This shot was done the same way but with a longer shutter speed and brighter background light.

This photo was shot as the previous photo, but the motion was stopped with the flash.  The slight ghosting effect on the wings is caused by ambient light hitting the wings while the shutter is still open before and after the flash goes off.

The shutter speed was set at 1/250 the flash unit was mounted about 1 foot from the bird on its lowest setting which creates a very short burst of light.  Now the trick will be to get that perfect shot with lots of detail and just a hint of motion on the tips of the wings to add something extra to the shot.

 Stay tuned for more. 

Skiing Mt. Rainier

We did a little ski tour of Mt. Rainier out of the Paradise parking lot the other day.  Unfortunately the weather was not the best for either skiing or photos, but the snow was pretty good.

Jason demonstrating perfect ski technique.

Powder

Nice!

Raven

It really is winter now.  Sub alpine fir, and mountain hemlock at the paradise parking lot.