Capturing the Moment

  A huge, 80,000lbs humpback whale leaps out of the ocean in a tremendous breach. I spent last week on a weeklong expedition cruise through the Hawaiian islands. One of my major focuses was on wildlife photography. I had my Canon 5d with an L-series 100-400 lens ready at a moments notice. And we scored. There were humpback whales, different species of dolphins, rare birds, then even rarer birds, octopus, and more. Check out the photos and descriptions and enjoy coming along for the adventure! The shallow ocean waters around the island of Maui play host to thousands of humpback whales every winter. They come to have babies and make babies. We think these breaching behaviors are part of their communication. Although perhaps just for fun. We can identify individual humpback whales using the unique white patches under their tail, which you can see here. There is an online database called HappyWhale.com, that you can upload your ID pictures like this to, and it will let you know if the ...

  One of the coolest things we were able to do on this recent trip to the Big Island was to get permission to hike way up through private Parker Ranch lands to the very back top of Waipio Valley. We started off in the hills overlooking Waimea. Then on foot we followed a water irrigation road for a few miles. The dense forest up here was filled with the sounds of birds and the snow covered peaks of Mauna Kea and Mauna Load dominated the horizon.   We passed by one bigger stream on our way to the top but everywhere else looked like a high elevation bog. Then, all of a sudden, the view opened up into a breathtaking scene of Waipio Valley like I had never seen it before. There was a sheer drop to the bottom of the crater where waterfalls cascaded down and collected in one big stream meandering thru the valley floor. Heidi, Susie, and Becky I'o, the Hawaiian Hawk!   As we stood taking in the view a lone bird of prey flew not too high above us. It could only ...