Why Shooting Photos of Geckos in Hawaii Presents Challenges

Ever since we bought our vacation home in Hawaii, I’ve been on a mission to shoot photos of geckos in Hawaii. Primarily the Gold Dust Day geckos because those constitute the biggest population in my yard. These are the cute lizards, similar to the lizards that make TV commercials. They grin and look so innocent and happy. Then you notice their tail is a different color and you realize they lost it somewhere at one time.

Yes, these geckos in Hawaii can regenerate a tail. So if they are cornered in a tight situation, they can detach their tail. Just leave it behind in the clutches of whatever was hindering its movement. They can grow a new one. Skinks can do that, too. In fact, when I was a kid, I would pull off the tails of skinks we caught. Then slip the tails in my brother’s bed, under the covers, at the foot of his bed. My siblings found that hilarious. Seems really gross to me today. And cruel to the skinks.

But I digress. This trip to the house to work — hey, I can work from Sacramento in the spring or I can work from Hawaii — I brought a different camera. My Canon Sureshot. This allows me to shoot long distances. You simply cannot get great photos of the geckos in Hawaii from an iPhone, or even a Nikon without a good zoom. They also run away from you when you get too close to them. Even if you say sweet things in a soft voice, they’ll split in a heartbeat. Sucker!

I am really proud of myself that I got the shot above. That gecko has a great personality that shines through. You can almost touch the lizardy skin. He thoroughly enjoyed sunning himself but you can sense a bit of apprehension in his eyes, even though I stood a good 10 feet away. I think his name is Norton.

This is a photo of a myna bird about a 1/2 mile away from our house. You can see the ocean behind the roof line, which is about a mile from our house. I shot this from my lanai. Not everybody loves myna birds because they are noisy and they fight a lot. They are also a bit like mockingbirds as they pick up sounds and repeat them.

Check this out! Do you know what these are? They are mangoes. We haven’t had any for two years because they were not fertilized and mulched. Now that the problem is rectified, we are getting tons of mangoes. This is a favorite place for the geckos in Hawaii to hang out. Some are brown lizards with smooth backs, and others resemble a toad, all bumpy and darker brown. Or maybe I grilled one by mistake.

Some of you may remember my blog about visiting Tutu’s Nursery in Kailua-Kona last winter to meet Barbara Bolton and buy a red ginger plant. I carted this one home and planted it in my front yard. A few days later, all the leaves were turning white as though bleached by the sun and drooping in its soggy environment.

That was the wrong place to plant red ginger. So, I dug it up and moved it to the back yard, near the mango tree. Trimmed off the bleached leaves, piled volcanic chips around it and let nature provide its water. Now I have blooms of ginger. The flower is ornamental, and some people use the tubers for medicinal purposes.

I plan over the next couple of weeks to shoot more photographs of geckos in Hawaii. They generally run in pairs, so if I find one in the garage, there is another nearby. We don’t get too many of them inside the house. But when one sneaks in, I sweep it out with a broom, using the broom like a hockey stick.

Back to work today, though. I have only four open houses today, but that’s enough. Hopefully a couple of my sellers will receive a few more offers by tonight.

That’s a nice benefit of working from Hawaii. Due to daylight saving, not practiced here, Hawaii is three hours behind Sacramento in the spring. So when an open house ends at 4 PM in Sacramento, it’s only 1:00 PM here. I have the entire afternoon to negotiate offers. There is no better place to do this than among the geckos in Hawaii.