Cooper's Island Nature Reserve

Due to the poor weather in the last couple of weeks I haven't been out taking photos. Today the weather turned great so I decided to go out for a stroll. 

I drove to the east end of the island as I just realized there's a nature reserve opened in 2008. The area used to be a NASA tracking station. It was shut down back in 2001 and developed into a nature reserve. For more history this is a great site: http://www.nasabermuda.com/

This map show the route from my place to the reserve:

My original plan was to look for birds so I lugged with me the heavy 300/2.8. However today the reserve was less populated with wildlife then I was expecting (maybe I just didn't look hard enough). Anyway I managed to get a picture of something similar:

(The building that the jetBlue plane is flying past is the St. David's Lighthouse)

Without the crowd beaches in Bermuda offer a different atmosphere in the winter. For my mind the calmness and peacefulness was really refreshing. At one point I wished I didn't have my camera equipments so I could lay down and enjoy the sound of nature.

After strolling around the reserve area I stopped by the race track nearby. I was there once before but this time I had my 300mm and I also managed to go deep inside the area and found a spot with good lighting (the sun was low and right behind me).

On the side of the track I saw a bunch of kids learning/practice on their bikes. I was amaze how young some of them are:

There is another road track nearby so I walked in and tried to practice my panning skill. My equipments are not known for their AF speed but I managed to capture a few shots. I have to say handholding&panning the 300mm isn't an easy task :)

After lugging around the 300mm for the whole afternoon my entire body was so sore I had to call it a day :)

Here are the flickr sets of today's pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jlamkw/sets/72157623224616352/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jlamkw/sets/72157623100169203/