Fauna and Flora of Bermuda | Vacation Photography

Fauna and Flora of Bermuda

Although everyone might naturally think of the pink sand beaches of Bermuda and well, Bermuda shorts, Bermuda’s beauty extends beyond the obvious beaches. I fell immediately in love with the fauna and flora of Bermuda. This is a great time to talk about vacation photography. Everyone lugs along on their vacation at least one camera, maybe even a video camera. But after you return home, how many pictures have you taken that you look at and later remember details about the actual photograph? Here’s my suggestion for you. In addition to taking photos of your family or friends that you travel with on vacation, pick something, that you can photograph in every location that you visit.

The abundance and sheer variety of flowers in Bermuda was astounding. In addition to the more traditional and expected tropical flowers one might expect, there were many I hadn’t seen before and don’t know the names of even now. For example, these petite tubular flowers were dainty, delicate, and plentiful. Anyone know what these are? They were growing near the Gibbs Hill Lighthouse and I couldn’t resist taking a picture.

I choose flowers and animals to photograph on vacation because I can create a story in photos with them when I return home. For example, I can hang photos of flowers from trips I have taken to Ireland, St. Maarten, and Bermuda on a wall in my home and it becomes an interesting piece of art. Be it a different color hibiscus that I haven’t seen before or those pretty tubular red flowers in Bermuda, they not only become conversation starters, but memories of trips that we’ve taken that we can see every day in our home. It would be easy to focus on landmarks and pictures of us dwarfed by those landmarks, but there’s something special about these nature photographs from around the world. I’ve actually been thinking about buying a drone to enhance my pictures. My friend told me about a great website (https://www.drdrone.ca/) and it’s definitely something I’d like to get into in the future. Drone photography is so cool!

How about a green turtle from Bermuda? This guy is part of the Bermuda Turtle Project at the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum & Zoo. My husband is a huge fan of turtles and during our tour of the island, we stopped for a moment by the Aquarium. The tank for the turtles is outside and we enjoyed watching them swim and interact with each other and even us. Maybe you don’t like turtles (gasp!), but like birds or fish instead. You can photograph them and create a collage of your trip with a series of fish you spotted or birds in flight. This is also a great project to do with your kids so they can learn about species of animals or types of plants without even realizing they’re learning.

I adore this picture of a cat that I saw at St. Peter’s Church in St. George, Bermuda. As I walked around the church to the graveyards at the back, I spotted this striking gray cat. I almost expected Zak Bagans from “Ghost Adventures” to pop up somewhere because it felt eerie here, with the cat laying on a tombstone and all. This was his home and he was very comfortable here, but it was more than a little unusual and unexpected.

As we walked along the streets in St. George, I remarked that I hadn’t seen any dogs in Bermuda. When we walked back down the steps at the front of the church to the street, a car pulled up in front of us and a woman got out of the car holding a boxer puppy. Anyone who knows us knows the strong tie that boxers have with our family so it was a great surprise and one I’ll always think of when I think of Bermuda.

If you are the assigned photographer for your family vacations, try picking a subject that you can always photograph no matter where you go. You’ll find that you will be less frantic about taking a picture of everything and far more focused on getting pictures of those things you really want like statues, lightposts, historic houses, mailboxes, and more. The possibilities are limitless! For now my subject is flowers and animals, but I give myself the option to change it at any time and so should you. After all, how can you resist the beauty of vivid greens and pink like in this picture? How could I resist the fauna and flora of Bermuda? It just wasn’t possible.

UPDATE: Thanks to the anonymous poster, we now know the names of these flowers! Pictures 1 and 6 are Frangipani, Picture 2 – Firecracker flowers, Picture 3 – Allamanda or Yellow Bell. Thanks!

Do you like taking pictures of animals and flowers while you travel?