Friends of Kealia Pond NWR

09/02/2025

Late announcement of one more award for the 2025 Friends of Kealia photo contest. A 1st place award goes to Nathan Wada for the photo of young photographers at Kealia Wildlife Refuge. Adult division, People in action.
(The photo is shared with permission of the two children, their mother, and dad (me).
Statement:
A pair of budding birders are capturing coots, hoping for herons, and scanning for stilts at Keālia’s Kanuimanu Ponds.

mahalo nui loa,

Nathan Wada

08/08/2025

08/08/2025

This posting will include all of the Honorable Mentions awarded to contestants whose photos were of high merit. There are many. All photos will be mounted and displayed at the Kealia Pond NWR Visitors Center sometime in September and will be on display for a year for public access. Be sure to come by once the exhibit is on display. Dates for the award ceremony and public availability will be posted once the refuge staff has completed purchase of awards and certificates, and have mounted and displayed all of the photos. Stay tuned to this FB page, and check https://friendsofkealiapond.org/

I made up the captions for the most part, but if I misspelled your name, let me know and I will make corrections.

08/08/2025

This posting will include images from winners in Youth Scenic, and Youth People in action.

08/08/2025

This posting will include the Photos receiving awards in the youth division.

08/08/2025

We have finally concluded the Friends of Kealia Pond 2025 photo contest. I will post images of the Winning photos and photos receiving Honorable Mention, The contest include youth and adult division, youth being under 18 years of age, and adult 18 years and older. We did have 3 categories, wildlife, scenic, and people in action. We received few images for people in action, few for scenic, and plenty for wildlife. Next year we will change the categories to reflect more popular interests. Kealia is not always profoundly scenic, but it sure has a lot of wildlife. Consequently awards were given for only one photograph in some cases. No 2nd or 3rd place, and in the adult we only found high quality images in the wildlife category. This photo contest is a work in progress, so we will make changes for next years contest to make sure we get more winners.
That said here are the images for Adult wildlife awards