A Darker View

Mauna Loa Awakens

I am not certain what woke me up at one AM, but I was awake. Before going back to sleep I decided to check the satellite photos to see if I might get some telescope time before dawn. But what I found online had me totally awake and grabbing a couple batteries for the camera.

Mauna Loa has awoken.

I was soon driving out from the house to a point above the village with a clear view of the mauna. The whole southern sky an angry red over the village as I drove. I did not have to drive far, just a couple minutes from the house where you can find a clear view. Pulling off I set up the camera and shot.

I was not the only one out, half a dozen cars could be seen stopped along Waikoloa Road to view the eruption. The whole mauna is lit up red and it looks like the west flank is erupting, not just the caldera as Civil Defense currently insists. Just the clouds lit up on that side?

Life is intertesting.

Summit Webcam of Mauna Loa Eruption — A summit webcam view of the new Mauna Loa eruption showing an active rift across the caldera floor.

Update: By dawn much of the caldera has flooded with lava. Scale is hard to see in the photos, you have to recall that the caldera is almost two miles across and three miles from end to end.

Mauna Loa Caldera Eruption — The Mauna Loa caldera eruption at dawn Nov 28, 2022

Update 9:11am: The eruption has already migrated to a series of fissures on the northeast flank. The typical Mauna Loa eruption script is a summit caldera eruption followed by a flank eruption a few days, or a few weeks later. We have just seen that happen in a few hours.

I am including a couple photos here taken by a co-worker as she commuted across the saddle this morning at dawn. You can already see the lava flows making their way into the saddle…

Black-headed Weaver

The Elephant’s Eye

Two days of safari had resulted in no good images of elephants. There were plenty of elephants around, it is simply that I had experienced no close encounters, those I had seen had remained distant, across the fields or on distant hillsides.

Well? There was one moment with elephants right on the road in front of us… But photos of an elephant’s bum disappearing into the brush? Not what I was hoping for.

Thus as safari day two ended I returned to the lodge with good lion photos, lots of hippo and antelopes, some nice birds… But no good elephant shots.

As I walked to dinner I noted one of the other guests on the dirt road in front of the lodge. Curious as to what had their attention I wandered out as well camera and telephoto lens in hand. I had taken the telephoto rig to dinner because you just did.

Finding the Lions

Lions are a big deal around Queen Elizabeth National Park, one of the reliable places to see them. A couple well known prides maintian territories that are quite accessible to the safari tours, making the park a must for the usual package safari tours.

An older male lion (Panthera leo) in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda — An older male lion (Panthera leo)

These typical tours advertise a three or five day tour of Uganda’s wildlife, making a whirlwind tour of western Uganda and the various parks. They may stop at Bwindi NP to view the gorillas, Kibale NP for the chipanzees, and Queen Elizabeth NP for the lions.

Perusing the many online safari advertisements it becomes apparent that top billing in Uganda goes to the gorillas, nearly every tour package highlighting the primates. Gorillas may be the goal of foreign travelers, but for local tourists, most from Uganda or other East African countries, it is the lions they come to see. For those who grew up here it is the lions that hold the fascination and mystique.

Electrical Hazard

Over the last week at work we have been preparing an unused part of the facility for use. We need a place for an industrial freeze dryer and a walk in cooler. But first we had to clear out a massive pile of junk that had accumulated, and do demolition on a lot of old equipment and piping to remodel the space.

Demolition? Break out the sawzall! We used a big sawzall, a small pile of saw blades, an angle grinder with a diamond cutoff wheel, a bit of muscle and a lot of sweat to get it done. The pile of trash accumulated rapidly along the fence, old lumber, a lot of PVC pipe, and a lot of rust… A big dumpster will appear later.

Rust. This close to the ocean everything is badly corroded, do not even try to release the old bolts, just pop a fresh battery into the angle grinder and let the sparks fly. The 20 amp sawzall does not use batteries, good for the thicker pipes and framed walls, it rips through PVC like butter.

Hippopotamus

Elephant

The Last Lunar Eclipse for a While

Hope you had a chance to see this one… The next total lunar eclipse is not until March 14, 2025.

Total Lunar Eclipse 11Nov2022 — Total lunar eclipse on Nov 8th, 2022

Even the Starlings are Pretty

While the big game such as elephants, lions, and hippos, get the attention on an African safari, the birds deserve top billing as well.

A Pied Kingfisher (Ceryle rudis) on the shoreline of Lake George, Uganda

The birds are amazing. From large, dramatic species like crowned cranes and hamerkops, to the small colorful sunbirds, there is an amazing richness to encounter in the African wilds.

There is only so many times you can take a photo of a lion or hippo. Between those big game encounters there are half a dozen birds to be viewed and photographed. From the delicate pin-tailed whydah to a wheeling flock of white-backed vultures, check out the birds.

Marabou

Imagine a bird…. A rather large bird…. That at once is both majestic and something that might populate a horror movie.

Look up just about any online list of the world’s ugliest birds and you will find the Marabou Stork listed. Deservedly so. This bird can be described as a very large, rather ill-tempered cross betwixt a stork, a vulture, and a burn victim.

The marabou stands about four feet tall and can have up to a three meter wingspan, though about two meters may be more typical. Large enough to intimidate nearly any other creature they may encounter, including people.