Barbados

I went with Megan to Barbados for a science conference, which was generally 3 hours of talks a day that, for the most part, I could follow the overall ideas but the details were a wash of terms I didn't know.

But the afternoons were ~5-6 hours of wander around and get photos or swim/snorkel which was quite fun. And this shot is going to go into that pile of damn awesome photos I keep.

Green Throated Carib Hummingbirb

A variety of other bird photos made me pretty happy but I suspect most other people won't care so really quickly some more birbs.

Sanderling

Zenaida Dove

Grey Kingbird

Before dinner, there was a mandatory get together on the shore to enjoy a beverage and watch the sunset. This lead to some fierce competition around sunset photos.

I did try a variety of shots and styles. These are from a 100mm lens and long exposures. The ones taking during the actual setting of the sun are sadly not particularly interesting but after the sun set I got some interesting shots.

5 minute exposure after the sunset (~ 25 mintues after) of the horizon

5 minute exposure right after the setting but with some fun post processing

Generally there were fun cloud arrays and getting the sun to highlight the edges was a fun strategy.

Another fun regular occurrence was getting streams of light coming from the clouds, (which I've just learned are called Crepuscular Rays.)

400mm telephoto lens.

Wide angle lens capturing both rays going up and down.

A final component was the nightly cruise ship that from our vantage point on the island was always chasing the sunset but never quite got itself in front of the sun. This one night it got pretty close and I really enjoyed this result.

A new first for us was to get to see monkeys frolicking in "the wild." We of course have seen a wide variety of lemurs so have seen some prosimians, but actual primates doing what they do is something we had not gotten to see before.

There was a troop of about 5 monkeys, what appears to be 1 older male, 1 older female, 2 adolescents, and 1 younger one would come through some evenings. Some visits were just moving through, others they hung out for awhile.

The 2 adolescent monkeys were either resting or fighting/playing everytime we saw them, sometimes sprinting up and down trees, other times back ad forth along the top of this fence nearby