Occasionally I spotted an unusual creature scurrying around areas where lava rock met vegetation in Hawaii. And even then sometimes only a long tail would attract my eye before quickly fading to black. One day we were walking toward yet another beach when I spotted a couple of them running around some trees. Of course, I did the honourable thing and tried to photograph the wily creatures. They seemed to have an uncanny knack for staying just out of my zoom range. Eventually I waited in one spot for them to come back and got a few shots.

Back at the condo I compared photos on the web and decided it must be a mongoose –  a new animal for me!

The mongoose was brought to Hawaii to control the rat population. Of course this type of human intervention usually ends badly. In this case, the minor miscalculation was that the mongoose sleeps at nite when the rats are active. Oops.

Apparently the mongoose can be a nuisance, but I liked them. And they definitely ran over the jagged edges of the lava rock a lot faster and better than I.