User:B.navez

Carnet d’images

Oté,
my name is Bruno Navez,
I am a French forest officer on Réunion Island and I’m mainly interested in nature topics.

No snow peak

Promoted to Quality image on 23 October 2008

Piton des Neiges (Snow Peak), the eroded remains of one of the shield volcanoes that built Réunion island, is the highest point (3070 m) of Indian Ocean.
Snow falls very rarely, most often as melted precipitations in the secrecy of bad weather clouds, except in August 2003 when top part of Piton des Neiges was snow-covered and visible three days long from all around the island.

21°5′54.1″S, 55°28′46.2″E

On the street market of Toliara

Promoted to Quality image on 20 May 2008

Toliara is a provincial capital of Madagascar, the main town of the south-western area.

23°21′4.04″S, 43°40′6.13″E

Youth foliage of Bourbon Red Fan-Palm

Promoted to Quality image on 1 September 2008

Latania lontaroides is a species of fan palm tree endemic to Réunion island (formerly Bourbon island).
Its youth foliage has got some beautiful red colors.

21°9′9.78″S, 55°16′49.49″E

Adventive craters of Fournaise volcano

Promoted to Quality image on 25 August 2008

Piton de la Fournaise is a regularly active shield volcano on Réunion island.
Lava projections build many adventive craters (splatter cones) along the eruption cracks.

21°15′10.735″S, 55°42′4.93″E

Pass on the path in Mafate

Promoted to Quality image on 19 August 2008

Hiking is one of the most popular attractions of Réunion island, specially in the road-free areas such as Mafate, one of the large natural cirques dug by erosion.

21°5′7.155″S, 55°26′23.902″E

Smart style of a red Hibiscus flower

Promoted to Quality image on 2 February 2008

Though many cultivars of Hibiscus rosa-sinensis have been developed with various colors and shapes, the wild-like form has kept the simple elegance of an intense red color with a very long and amazing column.
The flower lasts only one day.

21°16′7.32″S, 55°31′25.4″E

Pair of mangoes

Promoted to Quality image on 9 February 2008

Mangoes are one of oldest cultivated fruit in the world, produced by a tree of the species Mangifera indica.
From the hundred of small flowers of each large panicle, just one or two flowers, rarely more, become ripen mangoes.
This apple-like variety, in an orchard of Réunion Island, known as José mangoes, is locally the most favored.

21°2′36.33″S, 55°13′42.57″E

Rainbow shower on the sugar canes

Promoted to Quality image on 18 February 2008

Sugar cane fields fashion landscapes of Réunion Island where sugar is the first exported product.
Yet, they could disappear, unless a good fairy bless them, threatened by urban expansion and by economic competition with low wages countries.

20°55′6.36″S, 55°32′36.39″E

Formica Leo

Promoted to Quality image on 21 MAY 2008

Formica Leo is a small cinder cone depending on Piton de la Fournaise. It is said it grew up during an eruption in 1753.
For being located just on the main access to the summit of the volcano, it has become a famous touristic icon of Réunion Island.

21°13′24.75″S, 55°41′31.25″E

Climbing to cosmos

Promoted to Quality image on 2 April 2008

Enwildered blue Morning Glories (Ipomoea nil) are creeping along fading Cosmos flowers (Cosmos bipinnatus) that had been broadcast sown.

21°17′20.45″S, 55°31′9.89″E

Busy bee in white cluster

Promoted to Quality image on 18 February 2008

Ten or so different Dombeya species are representative of natural forests of Réunion island. They bloom with clusters of delicate flowers.
A Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) is visiting those of Dombeya acutangula which provide pollen abundantly.

21°16′4.99″S, 55°31′25.13″E

Pair of volcanoes

Promoted to Quality image on 31 March 2008

Most eruptions occur in the central crater or along the flanks of the Piton de la Fournaise main cone one can see here on the left in the background.
Though, from time to time, some eruptions occur in peripheral areas: Piton Chisny, here on the right, was built by such a violent one, about 1,100 years ago.

21°13′36.56″S, 55°38′52.12″E

Tree locust on Begonia

Promoted to Quality image on 12 January 2008

This tree locust (Anacridium melanorhodon ssp. arabafrum) travelled on my windscreen from coastal dry areas to a higher and moistier place.
It seems a bit disturbed on this Begonia, an unusual host for it.

21°16′6.57″S, 55°31′27.35″E

Spiders’ happy bee meal

Promoted to Quality image on 30 May 2008

The red-legged golden orb-web spider (Nephila inaurata), nicknamed Bib by Réunion’s people, is a species whose females are impressive large spiders, very much bigger than males. These ones take advantage of their mate’s web to share the remains of her meals.

21°16′6.57″S, 55°31′27.35″E

Invasive beauty

Promoted to Quality image on 19 April 2008
Promoted to Featured picture on 10 December 2008

Introduced flowers, such as this Kahili Ginger (Hedychium gardnerianum), once for its delicate scent, from its native Himalayan mountains to Réunion island, may become terrible invaders that cause much trouble to the vulnerable ecosystems of isolated islands.

21°3′11.59″S, 55°27′17.32″E

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