Blossoms on a Meyer lemon tree, just beginning to fruit

Meyer lemon blossoms

Meyer Lemon (Citrus × meyeri)
Location: Kohala Coast, Big Island, Hawaii

The blossoms on one of our lemon trees are beginning to fruit right before our eyes.  This photo shows several stages of the flower-to-fruit transition all in one blossom cluster.  These blossoms are on a Meyer lemon tree.   The blossoms are deliciously fragrant, and the fruit is exceptionally juicy.  The juice is excellent for fresh lemonade and for cooking.

The early bird gets the worm, and late arrivals settle for leftovers

House Finch - male (Carpodacus mexicana)

House Finch - male (Carpodacus mexicana)
Location: Kohala Coast, Big Island, Hawaii

You know that old saying: The early bird gets the worm.  The same can be said for seeds.  Every morning when we first put seeds on our bird feeders, mobs of birds arrive and quickly devour them.  Late arrivals, like this young male House Finch (Carpodacus mexicana), have to settle for any leftovers they can find on the ground near the feeders.  This little guy got lucky.  He managed to find a sunflower seed that the early birds had missed.

Blossoms on a Royal Poinciana Tree

Royal Poinciana (Delonix regia)

Royal Poinciana (Delonix regia)
Location: Kohala Coast, Big Island, Hawaii

We have a number of Royal Poinciana trees in our garden.  They were bare all winter, but now they all are full of buds.  Soon we'll be seeing lots of blossoms like these, photographed last summer.

Magenta Bougainvillea Hedge

Bougainvillea

Bougainvillea
Location: Kohala Coast, Big Island, Hawaii

Recently I have posted several photos that had a little bit of magenta bougainvillea in the foreground.  Here is a photo of a larger section of that hedge, taken with a point-and-shoot camera.

We have other colors of bougainvillea in our garden, too, but this magenta color is the most common (in our garden, and in general).

Miss Pretty Feathers

Female Mallard duck (Anas platyrhynchos)

Female Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos)
Location: Otago Peninsula, South Island, New Zealand

Here is a female Mallard duck (Anas platyrhynchos), showing off her pretty feathers in the sunlight.  The photo was taken in New Zealand, but this duck species also is common in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Young Coconut Palms

Coconut Palms (Cocos nucifera)

Coconut Palms (Cocos nucifera)
Location: Kohala Coast, Big Island, Hawaii

These are a few of my neighbor's coconut trees.   The photo was taken about five years ago with a point-and-shoot camera.  The trees are much taller now.  (Coconut trees grow quickly!)

The mountain in the background of the photo is Mauna Loa, the largest volcano on Earth.  If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you will also be able to see the town of Waikoloa off in the distance.  Look for it just below the palm fronds.

Beach Naupaka Flowers (Scaevola sericea)

Scaevola sericea

Beach Naupaka (Scaevola sericea)
Location: Kohala Coast, Big Island, Hawaii

One of the most common coastal shrubs in Hawaii is the Beach Naupaka (Scaevola sericea) -- called 'naupaka kahakai' in the Hawaiian language.  This bushy shrub with the glossy green leaves grows naturally above the tide line at beaches all over the islands.   It is salt-tolerant and easy to cultivate, so it also is used as a landscaping hedge, especially at elevations near sea level.

Naupaka kahakai, pictured here, is the beach naupaka.  Naupaka kuahiwi (Scaevola chamissoniana) is a closely related shrub that grows in the mountains.  Both have delicate white blossoms that look like half-flowers.

A Hawaiian legend tells us why there are two kinds of Naupaka, and why the flowers look like half-flowers.   There are several versions of the legend, and the details vary, but the gist is this: Two young lovers were forbidden to be together.  One of the pair had to live in the mountains and the other had to live near the ocean.  The girl picked a white flower and cut it in two, giving half to her lover and keeping the other half for herself.  Eventually the gods turned each of the lovers into a shrub that bore a half-flower.  One of those shrubs was made to grow in the mountains, and the other at the beach.

Killer Sunset in Hawaii

sunset

Location: Kohala Coast, Big Island, Hawaii

Our back garden faces west, so we are well situated to watch sunsets.   But there are sunsets, and then there are killer sunsets.  This one fell into that latter category.

This photo was taken about five years ago.  The sky was thickly overcast.  The cloud cover acted like a giant diffuser for the light from the setting sun, and then reflected the light onto the surface of the Pacific Ocean.

If you visit Hawaii and the weather is cloudy, don't despair.  That means you probably will have the opportunity to see a killer sunset!

Bell Pepper in the Coleus Patch

Green pepper

Location: Kohala Coast, Big Island, Hawaii

I'm still going through some old photos that were taken during the pre-digital era.  Last month I posted a photo of a volunteer coleus patch that began to grow on a walk in our garden without any help from us.  Well, what goes around comes around.  Here we have a volunteer bell pepper plant that decided to grow in a cultivated coleus patch!

The coleus bed had been mulched with compost, and we believe that some stray pepper seeds were in the mixture.  When the little pepper plant first sprang up, we recognized what it was, so we left it to grow.  As you can see, that was a good idea.   It gave us a few fresh peppers for our salads.