Foster Botanical Garden, 5/30/20

I am now in "the club" I am retired as of yesterday. The actual date is June 1 because with the State of Hawaii it is always the first of the following month. I began in August 1990.

Wow, the following guys came today - Derek, Milton S., Walter, Bob, Steve and Wesley.  Lol, I am their token female. Too bad Curtis, Dean and Dewey were not able to come.

I used a Sigma 100-400 lens on my Canon camera. 

This twisted tree caught my interest.

The bright sun created this bokeh which I saw on the hibiscus.

Canon ball flowers are so cool.

I regret not using my macro lens which I did have on my other camera. This was the only decent bee photo. It was really hot and I did not have the energy to pull it out of my bag. Milton S. used his macro.

Believe it or not, there were very few butterflies. They are so challenging to capture. Maybe next time.

I am really proud of our group, we all wore our face masks and went home because the restaurants are not open due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Although, face masks are required during this time - many many people disregard wearing them. This is not the first time. Sorry to dwell on this however none of us want to catch this virus - we all need to be respectful of each other.

Ho`omaluhia Botanical Garden, 5/25/20

I met up with Derek and Lorraine @9:00. Later we saw Dewey and Angie.

Ducks!!!

The next 2 are with my iPhone 8

I like this simple sign.

Around 10:45, we called it quits. It was very hot and wearing a face mask made this photo outing challenging. Thank you Derek for encouraging me to come out, although as I mentioned it was hot, it was still fun.

Kualoa Reginal Park, 5/23/20

This blog will be in two parts. The first part are photos from my Canon camera. The second part are photos I made with my iPhone8 and I posted on Instagram and Facebook

Gary and I met Derek and Lorraine @8:30. 

The water was super clear.

In the second part, I will tell you more about this sea slug

I will also tell you more about this female seal, which Derek and Gary kept telling me "seal". Me, "huh?" Lorraine luckily was swimming nearby so she also got to see this adorable seal.

Second part: 

The life of a seal. This lady is waiting for the seal to turn over to see if she is the seal from Niihau. Apparently, they are "branded" or tagged depending on which island they are from. There were lots of large sand crabs, thankfully only this one was out of its tunnel. You can tell by the size of the openings with lard sand mounds. Oh boy, dessert from Waiahole Poi Factory - so yummy "Sweet Waiahole Lady" (warm kulolo topped with coconut ice cream).

Along here, we saw this sea slug. We sprinkled ocean water on it to see its reaction.

I wanted to include the video but it would not upload. Basically we sprinkled ocean water on it and it undulated.

We were fortunate the weather was really nice. Thanks Derek for asking if anyone wanted to join you and Lorraine.