We have been having some beautiful sunsets recently and wanted to share photos with you. (Video and Photos by Neil.)

Sunset on February 21st was lovely. Lucky I had the camera with me as we sat watching whales from the beach at the end of the driveway. I had been hoping to capture the momentary legendary green flash at the moment the sun drops below the horizon. I’ve seen much better ones than the weak one I caught here, even so, I think you’ll enjoy it!

Video and Text by Neil

Here’s the male cardinal who asked me to put some sunflower seeds out. He visits several times a day and chirps while he eats. The female comes too, but she is more skittish. Like many females I know, she does not like her picture taken — especially when she is eating! She also talks a lot while she eats. We can tell their voices apart and know who is visiting without even looking. But of course, it is more fun to watch them! (I’m pretty sure if we would take each one of their cheeps and slow it down enough we would hear “thaaaannnnkkkkssss!”)

The more I observe this male Cardinal the more impressed I am with him. I have lived here for 14+ years and never put food out for the birds. Then, a few weeks ago this male Cardinal started visiting this bush and calling to us as we sat whale watching over morning tea. It took about 3 days for me to get the idea to put food out for him. As soon as I did, he would visit several times a day, serenading us with joyful song. When he left he usually took an unopened seed with him. Why??

At first, the cautious female would stay at a distance and the male would fly seeds over to her, sometimes more than once during a feeding session. Eventually, the female would come on her own. It definitely appeared as if he was patiently teaching her how to be an adult.

He seems to be a good mate. Surprisingly often he will show up bringing her some treat. At the end of this clip we see her spit out a sunflower seed to make room for one. She opens her mouth for it like a young bird. Hopefully they will show up one day with some little ones!

It’s whale season again on Maui! We enjoy watching them from our lanai at morning tea time! Now in addition to carrying our breakfast items, we carry out the binoculars, and sometimes the camera on its tripod. We like to see the mothers and calves nursing close to shore because often play time follows with the baby practicing breaching and tail slaps. Through the binoculars, we can watch the whales on the horizon including competition pod activity. The other morning we saw an incredible three whale simultaneous breach straight off our driveway on the horizon.

Neil has continued to explore the cool features of our new camera (Sony Cybershot HX9V) including the HD video features. He shot several segments and has edited a three and a half minute video of whale activity viewed from our lanai. [Clicking on the link will open a window in youtube. You can click on the gear looking icon in lower right of the play screen to choose HD 1080p (high definition) if you have fast bandwidth downloading and then  expand to full screen.]

We took an excursion on a whale watch boat the end of February in hopes of getting up close viewing. Sometimes it feels like it is really a whale search excursion because even though there are lots of whales around the Hawaiian Islands in the winter months, they aren’t active at the surface in the area we’re cruising. An unusual highlight on our trip was having a Booby bird land on the railing and hang out with us for nearly 10 minutes. It wasn’t in the least concerned by all the people getting close and photographing it. The species appears to be a female or subadult Red Footed Booby.

Another camera feature Neil has been experimenting with is the high dynamic range settings, some are automatic in the camera and some require manual processing. For manual processing, it saves three shots when you take one photo: one under exposed, one normal light, and one over exposed. Then the three can be merged in Photoshop which brings out the colors in what would normally look too dark or too light in a standard photograph. This photo of the West Maui Mountains with the windmills is a high dynamic range to bring out the clouds above and the shoreline below. That one was an extra challenge because the boat was moving and the water was rippling and the camera was unsteady, so combining the three shots seems to have given it more visual depth than usual.

We woke to a beautiful sunny warm morning on Christmas day. Yes, like every morning we enjoy on Maui! We have started a ritual of having our morning tea, fruit, and scones on the lanai. We like to watch the antics of our freshwater fish in their aquarium as we give them their breakfast. We also like watching whales frolic offshore.

We find it hard to find surprise gifts for each other so we wrapped some little things for the stockings and also wrapped some of the things we already knew we were getting.

Later, we went to our friends Roger and Wanda’s for a Christmas feast and enjoyed time with their family, watching college football, and playing a game of cards.