Kilauea Point - Lighthouse and National Wildlife Refuge

We come to this location each time we visit Kauai. I am looking to photograph the following things - the birds and bird habitat, the beautiful island and surrounding water, and the lighthouse. This location offers viewing of all of these sites from a cliff. You can also see whales from this location and we saw several, but they are too far out for my telephoto.

The lighthouse

The issue with this lighthouse as far as photography goes is that you are right on top of it and there is no easy way to get the distant shot that makes for a good lighthouse photo.

The Island

The island is beautiful. I have better photos from previous visits that do a better job of showing of the color contrast between the green and black island and the blue and white water. But, you deal with the light you have on any given day.

It is difficult to provide a sense of the wave size when shooting down, but again the color of the water from this location is very interesting.

The birds

As far as I can tell, the wildlife refuge is all about the birds. This is a large nesting area for several species.

The thing about a refuge is that is prime habitat and the wildlife is protected so you can't get too close. All of those white dots on the hillside are birds.

Trying to use a long lens to photograph birds on the fly is tough. It is easy enough to get an image in your viewfinder, but tough to get a shot that is in focus. I did get a few.

This is the Red-Footed Booby - it has red feet that are similar to those of a duck and a pale blue bill. Get a good shot of the bill and you are pretty certain you can name what you are shooting.

I am calling this a Great Frigatebird