I got two more

Eared Grebe

At this time of year, if you are a serious lister, there aren't too many birds left to chase. Chances are pretty good that the birds you missed are far south in Central America or the Amazon. You can hope fore a freak bird to show up or you can hope for a rare winter specialty to show up. I got two winter birds recently

There has been a couple of Lapland Longspurs in Westerly the last couple of days. On top of the Longspurs an Eared Grebe was found by Matt Schenck. That gave me two birds to chase. I had only ever seen one Lapland Longspur and I had never seen an Eared Grebe.

 I got them both. The Eared Grebe was by Quonny and the Lapland Longspurs were at Misquamicut State Beach Parking Lot.

The photos are heavily cropped. I can't believe the Longspur pics are as clear as it is with as much I cropped them

Lapaland Longpur

Key West Food and Drink

 

This post will conclude my writing about my twelve days in Florida. It is far more bitter than sweet that I am done. We didn't just go to Florida to be warm. I have a bucket list written down in a notebook. I had about fifteen things written down I wanted to do in Florida. I had a list of twenty two things to door or places to see. This trip alone I had a shot at fifteen of them (most of the others were birding locations in north Florida). I ended up being able to check off fourteen of the fifteen. The one I did not do was catch a tarpon.

Key West alone, had eight different things I could check off of my bucket list. I've already written about snorkeling a coral reef which was a big one for me. If you look at my last post, you'll see a sunset photo. Seeing a sunset over the Gulf of Mexico was another.

Some of the others may surprise you. It's no secret that I don't drink very often. As I've put it in the past "I'll go months at a time without a drink before I've even realized I've gone months without one". Drinking has never been my thing. So you'd probably never guess I had three bucket list ideas that involved alcohol. I wanted to go to Sloppy Joe's and Captain Tony's. Both were bars that Hemingway frequented. Sloppy Joe's also has some of the best food in the city. Captain Tony's is famous for being a spot Buffett played at and hung out. My third item was to get drunk in Key West. I guess to honor Hemingway. In my entire bucket list notebook, there is no other mention of alcohol, just Key West.

I had food I specifically wanted to try while in the Conch Republic. Of course, I wanted an authentic slice of Key Lime Pie. I wanted to get a Fish Taco. Lastly, I wanted to try Conch Fritters which are basically clam cakes but with conch instead of quahog.

   Luckily, Key West has great food and plenty of drinks.

Key Lime Pie- Laurie and I went on a Key Lime Pie Taste Testing Spree! Starting in Key Largo at the Blonde Giraffe and ending at Kermits on Key West, we tried KLP from seven different places. I had gone on line and found a top ten list for Key Lime Pie and we tried as many as we could (one had gone out of business). My favorite was Kermit's near Mallory Square.

Conch Fritters- There is a little outdoor eating place called the Conch Shack on Duval Street. It is open air including the cooking area. I got conch fritters there twice. They were very good. There was another place near the Shipwreck Museum that also had Conch Fritters, but seemed closed when we would walk by. In case you want cheap beer. The Conch Shack has the cheapest beer in Key West. Four dollars a bottle.

Fish Taco's- I wanted to try fish taco's in a part of the country that makes authentic fish tacos. That really means Florida and California. I didn't want some previously frozen Applebee's special.  I got fish tacos at two places. The first was called B.O.'s Fish Shack. I'm pretty sure they used mahi-mahi. It was pretty good. The other place was a Mexican place called Amigo's on Greene Street. It was delicious. More on Amigo's below.

Food in General-

Plain and simple, the food is awesome. It is obviously more expensive being a tourist town a hundred miles from mainland Florida. Besides the food above, we tried other stuff. I did not have a bad bite to eat anywhere-

Amigo's Tortilla Bar- is across the street from Captain Tony's. Laurie got the quesadilla and I got tacos the first night. The quesadilla was very good, but the tacos were the best I have ever had. You can choose multiple types of tacos. I got chicken, beef, and veggie (plus the fish taco a different night). All are prepared differently so I got three different flavors. They were amazing. Six dollar frozen strawberry margaritas

Margaritaville- this is the original Margaritaville owned by Jimmy Buffett. We only bought a slice of KLP and a frozen drink, but next time I'm getting the buffalo wings.

Sloppy Joe's- I could go on about how good the food was at Amigo's, but I could say the same thing about Sloppy Joe's. The food was terrific. They do have a Sloppy Joe sandwich and it is delicious. Laurie ordered a BBQ pork sandwich that might even be better. I'm confident that you can't be disappointed with anything you order. My advice is to go for lunch. It is very crowded after dark. It is still the busiest bar in Key West for eighty years.

Drink- Because  our Key West Pass had coupons for buy one drink get another free at five places, I went into more bars in three days than I have in the last twenty five years combined. We got frozen drinks with our meals at Sloppy Joe's, Amigo's Tortilla Bar, and Mararitaville. None of those places were buy one/get one. We also crossed off of my bucket list having a drink at Captain Tony's possibly sitting in a seat that Jimmy Buffett sat in. There are bras pinned to the walls in Captain Tony's, reminding people that years back Key West was a pirate town that had a lot more debauchery than now.

When we went bar hopping we also stopped at Hard Rock Cafe and had a drink at the outside bar. We went into the Smokin' Tuna which had a cool rustic vibe. We went to Rick's Key West where we got a draft bear in a cup that we took home. And we got drinks at a place called Pepe's where at this point I'd been bar hopping for a couple hours and wasn't feeling any effects so I switched over to tequila shooters.

   Long story short, I got drunk in Key West. I didn't get shitfaced despite switching to tequila shots. I was just passed buzzed in the slightly drunk category. At least drunk enough where I can cross it off of my bucket list and I don't have to do it again.

Key West is awesome

p.s.- In case your wondering. The night we went bar hopping and consequently got a little tipsy was our last night there. The next day we had a five hour drive through the Everglades. I wanted to make it an all day road trip and stop to see sights and gators. I woke up at 4:35 am without any hangover at all. we were packed and in the car at 5 am.

Key West Superlatives

Key West is famous for its sunsets.
It did not disappoint

   I've been to a bunch of tourist towns. There is usually a tourist town near most of the national parks. I've been to Moab, West Yellowstone, Estes Park, and Bar Harbor among others. Of course there are tourist towns up and down both coasts from Newport to Miami Beach with Myrtle Beach and the Outer Banks mixed in, there is no shortage of places that can only survive because tourists come and drop a boatload of money.

   By far, my favorite of these places is the little island that juts out into the Gulf of Mexico at the end of Route 1.  Laurie and I spent three days in Key West and we loved it. I may as well start by saying Key West is not cheap. Furthermore, unless you are swimming or snorkeling at Fort Zachary Taylor, you probably won't have much fun if you don't spend some money.

You can break down things to do in Key West in four  categories.

Transportation
Attractions/ Tourist Traps
Water  related activities
Food/Drink (in a separate post)
I am also going to cover the Key West Pass in this post

We did our share of all of these things. Yet, as Captain Tony says to Buffet "Jimmy, there's still so much to be done". I want to go back so badly. I want to do some of the things we did, again, and I want to try other things. I can't give you a review about things we didn't do obviously, but I think the easiest way to write this post is to review the things we did and let you decide if you would be interested in them.

Transportation-

 I'd like to cover transportation first, because you can't do an attraction unless you can get there.. You will do a lot of walking up and down Duval Street, you have to accept that in advance.. There is a free bus called the Duval Loop that you can take. The catch is it doesn't go down Duval Street. It circumvents it. The bus will get you close to many of the attractions but doesn't actually stop at them so you will have to pay attention to your map.

You could use the Old Town Trolley (I cover the Old Town Trolley below under Attractions) and/or the Conch Train but you will drop some money on those

You could drive, but good luck finding a parking spot near the main drag. And the cost of parking is ridiculous. If you do drive into the tourist area my advice is to get there fairly early not only is parking tough but avoiding pedestrians is not a fun game you want to play.

The best way to take a load off of your feet is to rent a bike. A bike will cost you between $10-15/day. There are many places to rent a bike on Key West. Also, many of the motels on Key West have complimentary bikes for their guests. We stayed at the Harborside Motel and Marina which did not offer bikes. There was a bike rental place about a ten minute walk from our motel named Sunshine Scooters. They specialize in Moped rentals, but also rent bikes. It is important to remember there are many bike rental places in Key West, but we only rented from this place, therefore I can only give one fair review. The other places may be better or worse, I do not know.

   We rented bikes our last day on Key West. We were tired of walking and taking the Duval Loop Bus. Also we wanted to go to Fort Zachary Taylor Beach and that would have been a very long walk. We walked over to Sunshine Scooters about 8:10 in the morning. Right away we were greeted by a friendly guy and he set us up with bikes. We had to sign a waiver that we declined a helmet and that we wouldn't drink and ride. After we paid ( I believe it was $32 for both bikes another guy brought us to the bikes. They come with a basket, a bell, and a lock. We found out then, that they weren't even oen yet. They open at 8:30, but they helped us anyway.

We also realized they closed a 5 pm. We certainly planned on riding the bikes well past then to get food on Duval Street. Not to worry. They allowed us to bring the bikes back anytime. We just locked them up and dropped the key in a safe. We ended up dropping the bikes off about 11 pm. There are cheaper bike rental places, I think there is one nine dollars a day, but considering the proximity to our motel and the after hours drop off, we will use them again.

2.  Attractions/ Tourist Traps

There are a lot of family friendly places to go in Key West. Quite honestly, we didn't have the time for most of them. Harry Truman spent a lot of time in Key West so you can visit the "Truman Little White House". You can visit a Butterfly Garden, Audubon's House, and museums.  You can easily get a list of attractions online. The things we did are below.

Old Town Trolley-
   The Old Town Trolley costs about $40/person. They tell you the history of Key West along with other useful tips. Personally, I thought it was a waste of forty dollars that would have been better used on a snorkel tour.

There is a"Conch Train"that follows roughly the same route and does the same thing. We didn't do it.

Shipwreck Museum-
Despite looking forward to this, again my interest and mind were elsewhere. There was Spanish gold and silver, Pieces of Eight and canons. The cost was about $14 but I was happy to get out.

Southernmost Point
 You can get off of the trolley at Southernmost Point. There is a marker. It is free but you will have to wait your turn to get a photo. Hey, if your in Key West, you need to do it.

Hemingway House

Hemingay House

six toed ct

Ernest Hemingway lived in Key West from 1931-1939. He bought a house on Whitehead Street. This was my favorite tourist attraction. You can take a tour of the house with a guide. There are photos in all of the rooms of Hemingway. The main attraction are the cats. There are 59 cats on the property. Most of them have six toes. They are friendly, which is a good thing because they are everywhere. I think we paid $15/person. The tour lasts about 30 minutes but you can stay on the grounds as long as you want, walk freely around the house, or take pictures of cats for as long as your heart desires.

Fort Zachary Taylor

Besides snorkeling off of the Fury Cat, my favorite "attraction" was basically free. On our last day, we rode our rented bike to Fort Zachary Taylor State Park. I think the cost for a pedestrian/ bike rider is $2-3/person. There is a large fort that very much reminded me of Fort McHenry in Baltimore. There are also nature trails that I think would be very birdy that I will make time for next trip. However, the real star of the park is the beach. The beach has to be the most beautiful I have ever seen. The tree line goes almost to the water. The sand isn't smooth because it is made of broken coral, but it is white and very pleasing to look at. There were a lot of people on the beach, but there was still plenty of room to put down our towels.

The swimming is fantastic. About 40 yards off shore are some rock piles. The piles extend underwater drawing many of the fish I saw at the coral reef. I saw multiple parrotfish and Sargent Majors. There were other fish I couldn't identify. We snorkeled around the rocks for well over an hour.

Mallory Square

Each evening there is a "Sunset Celebration" at Mallory Square (which is north of Duval Street on the ocean. There are vendors and street performers. Laurie was really looking forward to going to this celebration. We assumed it would be a carnival atmosphere. We think it s possible it was the time of year, but Mallory Square did not live up to expectations. The only vendor was a guy selling popcorn. There were three or four street performers a night. However, they were disappointing also. They spent half of their performance telling you how much money you should give them. One guy seriously said "If you are wondering how much you should give me, let me help you out with that. Between $5-10 is fair. Street Performance is an art" Needless to say we walked away from him.

The lunatic crazy ass street performer and his cat jumping
through a hoop that is on fire.

The most famous street performer is a guy that has trained cats that do tricks. Here's the thing, the cats are cool and did tricks. But the guy was a complete lunatic, as in like a crazy person. His performance of weird laughs and looking like he was on acid took away from the cats performance.

We do think that after Thanksgiving when tourist season really hits, there will be more performers and vendors, but for us it was underwhelming. On the bright side, one of the nights we were there did have an amazing sunset.


3. Watersports
 
Being an island at the end of a chain that begins a hundred miles away, there is a lot of water activities to do. There are boats that will take you out snorkeling, scuba diving, cruising, drinking, fishing, sunset watching, jet skiing, parasailing, and probably other things. We went snorkeling.

We used the company called Fury. They were excellent. We went seven miles out to the coral reef and snorkeled for about an hour. The sea conditions were rough for both boat and snorkeling. Before we went on board, the captain explained that it was rough. Anyone that didn't want to go could get a full refund or switch to another day. The conditions were going to be worse the following day, so we chose to go, but I respected them for the refund policy. We took a really comfy catamaran out to the reef. You have the choice to walk down a ramp to the water or jump right in. I didn't see too much snorkeling, but that was mostly because of the conditions.

Back on the boat, you could rinse off in  a freshwater shower. On the way home there was unlimited, beer, soda or margaritas. Since I swallowed a gulp of seawater and my stomach knew it, I drank soda. Still, I rate these guys first class. The mates were cool as was the captain. I think the cost for the three hour trip was $44.

As for any other snorkel company or water related companies, you will have to research them yourself.


4. Key West Pass

You can go online and buy a coupon booklet called Key West Pass. The booklet has about fifty deals of buy one/get one free (BOGO). The cost of the booklet is roughly $50. The catch is you can only buy it online and it is mailed to you. YOU CAN NOT BUY IT IN KEY WEST.

The book was well worth the money. Many of the attractions in Key West are covered. There are three different snorkeling companies where you can get a buy one/get one snorkel tour. Using just one pays for the book. Also included are the Shipwreck Museum, Butterfly Gardens, Aquarium, Old Town Trolley, and Ghost Tour among others. There are also five coupons for bars where you can get a buy one/get one drink of equal or lesser value. The book was well worth it for us. We used it for a snorkel tour on the Fury Cat, the Old Town Trolley (which costs a ridiculous $40, so that alone was a huge savings), the Shipwreck Museum and the free drink at the bars. All of the places honored the pass no questions asked.

In my next post, and my last on Florida, I will review the places we ate and drank.

All you need to know about swimming with Manatees

Of the many things I wanted to check off of my bucket list in Florida, probably the most important to me was to swim with manatees. When I say "swim with manatees", I'm not talking about a wildlife encounter at an aquarium or a zoo where a trainer holds your hand while you feed an animal or fish. I wanted to swim with manatees in their natural habitat..

   The only places you can really do this legally is Crystal River (both the name of a river and town) and Homosassa Spring (a spring and community). Crystal River is the better place to see the manatees. There are more there. However, there are also more people and tour companies. The best time to see the most manatees is the winter. Manatees can die of hypothermia when water temps go below 68 degrees. Even though we consider Florida warm, the Gulf of Mexico does get chilly in the winter. The manatees come to Crystal River in huge numbers because of the warm water springs in the river. The springs pump out thousands of gallons of water a day that is seventy degrees.

There are a lot of of tour companies that go out to Crystal River to see the manatees. You could easily spend an afternoon googling them and reading reviews. I know, because I did. They all have a few things in common. If you go with a tour company, they will all make you watch a video of the dos and don'ts when you are in the water around manatees. I'm pretty sure this is a requirement by the National Wildlife Refuge. Secondly, you will most likely be required to wear a wet suit. The water is only 68-70 degrees and the wet suit does keep you warmer. Lastly, you will be snorkeling in a wet suit, but you most likely won't be wearing fins. Fins stir up sediment lowering visibility, so from what I can tell, most companies ban them.

The companies want you to stay on the surface so you don't stir up sediment. Staying on the surface will also keep you from bothering feeding and sleeping manatees on the bottom. Because of this, the companies give you a pool noodle to put under you to keep you buoyant. Personally , I thought the pool noodle was a pain in the ass but its a rule to use it. So you put the noddle under your arms and you doggy paddle from the boat to the manatees, Despite the slowness of doggy paddling, you're still going to see a bunch of manatees. I also could tell that some of the tourists could barely swim, never mind snorkel so the pool noodle is a real advantage to people not comfortable in the water.

Laurie watching a manatee pass by

There are roped off zones where you can't disturb manatees. I assume these zones are where springs are. It is really irrelevant, because there are plenty of manatees outside of the protected areas.  When the captain anchored the boat, we all got out and followed the in-water guide, Rosie, about 50 feet. We came up to a sleeping manatee.

   Before I go on, I have to say that I am usually the first one to be upset when people get to close to wildlife. I had a fit last year when people were practically petting the Snowy Owl. But, as long as people follow the rules about not harassing them, the manatees do quite well with people around. In fact, manatees like people. They will come right up to you and check you out. They will kiss your mask and even hug you. I saw one woman have a manatee put its face right into her mask for 20 seconds. That didn't happen to me, but I did have one manatee swim right under me  upside down, we looked each other in the eye. I was within inches of sleeping and feeding manatees, and they don't mind at all. It is a great experience.

There are ways you could see manatees for free, but honestly, this is one time where I feel it is worth the money to go with a group. For one thing, the wet suit helps keep you warm. The cost per person ranges from $60-100 depending on the length of the tour and the company you choose. You could get a private tour for a family that could run you four hundred dollars, but that is asinine. We went out on Captain Mikes. This is one of the bigger companies in Crystal River. There are also one of the cheapest. Cost was a factor in our decision. We took there 3 hour tour (okay, Gilligan) that cost $65. Because of the proximity to the manatees from the marina, we were in the water for over two hours of the three hour trip.  We saw over a dozen manatees close up and more while we were heading out.

One thing to keep in mind is that most of the boat companies go to the same areas. So, don't expect to be alone. There were three boats in the same small bay each with a dozen passengers. Luckily, there are enough manatees that the boats keep some distance from each other.

After our tour, we watched a slide show of pictures that Rosie took. They were very good. I splurged on the package. It cost $37 for about 180 photos and five short videos. Not every photo is a winner because they haven't edited out the bad ones, but none the less the real good shots were worth the money.

All in all, swimming with manatees was everything I hoped it would be. I wasn't a fan of the pool noodles but I understand their purpose. Looking back on the trip, the manatees was probably my favorite thing I did on a vacation where every day was a highlight. I seriously doubt it will be a once in a lifetime experience. It was incredible.

The photos below were taken by the guide. Three of the photos I took are below them

I took the three photos below

Things I am Thankful for- 2019

We interrupt the regularly scheduled posts about Florida to give you a blog post about things I am thankful for. We will resume our regularly scheduled programming about Florida birds, fish, and gators in a day or two.

Every year I write a post around Thanksgiving about all of the things I am thankful for in the outdoors. This post isn't about healthy family, a roof over my head, or things in everyday life. I am thankful for those things, but that isn't what www.southernnewenglandoutdoors.blogspot,com is about. As I have said, hopefully my blog will inspire someone to get outside and get some fresh air. Maybe I can share a tip or two. So a post about being thankful once a year seems appropriate. If I didn't have fish, mountains, and birds, I don't know if I would be able to enjoy life. But I love life, so without further adieu... 

1.   I am thankful that my adventurer son lives the life we wants to live. He travels from job to job across the country. When he isn't working we travels either home or abroad. He lives an amazing life. As his father, I couldn't be happier for him.

1a.    I am thankful for my two best friends. I have dragged Laurie on so many bird chases this year, she probably should have stopped coming over. I am thankful that Dave hasn't disowned me because of how little I have fished this year. I never thought a year chasing birds would take so much time away from fishing. But Dave still calls and tells me how the fishing is and checks in on me. I thank both of you.

2.    I am thankful I got to have such great experiences in South Florida. Every day was a bucket list item. We did so many things. While I was there each day was a different chapter of an amazing story. One minute I think Key West was my favorite thing we did. Then I remember how swimming with manatees was so humbling. And I realize I snorkeled six times and whether we aid a boat to take us to the coral reef or we swam at the rocks at Fort Zachary Taylor, it was all  amazing 

3.    I am thankful for whale watch trips. I went on three this year. Two of them were to find pelagic birds. Think of how lucky we are to live near the ocean and to see those incredible animals. I know I will go on multiple whale watch trips next year. I l already have the money budgeted.

4.   I am thankful for the Ocean State Bird Club and Narragansett Surfcasters. Since I now work on Tuesday evenings, it is almost impossible to get to club meetings for my fishing club. But I have made a good friend there. I enjoy the company of the other guys every time I get to see them.

   Through the Ocean State Bird Club and just seeing the same birders all the time, I have made some good friends. I am part of a family. There are millions of people that "bird watch", but there is a dedicated group of hardcore birders that are out there every Saturday. If a rarity is spotted, we all share info, but it is the same ten or so people that will rush to see it, they are great people.

5.   I only got to New Hampshire once this year (blame the birds in Rhode Island). Still, I am glad it is only three hours away from my house if I need to get away. Hopefully I will see more of it next year. 

6.   I am thankful that Jan took me under her wing right from the beginning of the year and helped me get birds. When she was privy to a rare bird that I was not she would tell me where it was. Even after I got in the group text, she still made sure I chased birds. Even when I was in Florida she was pushing me to chase the Antillean Palm Swift, a bird that has only been documented in North America twice. I think we have become pretty good friends.

7.    I am a person who cares more about experiences than I am about things. That said, I am thankful for my 500 mm camera lens, because of it I have had some amazing experiences photographing amazing wildlife. I couldn't live without it.

8.   I am thankful for May and September. I love the spring migration when the trees are full of colorful birds. Of course I love September for albies. I only caught three this year, but each one was awesome.

9.I am grateful for the mudflats behind Charlestown Breachway. Most of my memories this summer came from there.

10.  I am thankful for the one great day I had at the Canal. I caught a couple 30 pounders and a few other keepers.

11. I am thankful for our national parks and our protected land. I hope it forever stays protected for others to enjoy as I have.  

Shark Valley, Everglades National Park

 Everglades National Park has three visitor centers. None of them are near each other. Also, you have to leave the park to got from one to either of the other two. The Visitor Center along Route 41, The Tamiami Trail is named Shark Valley. Laurie and I spent a few glorious hours exploring the Everglades from Shark Valley.

Before I go on, I don't know why the area is called Shark Valley. The parking lot and Visitor Center is smack dab in the middle of a sawgrass prairie so there sure as hell aren't any sharks. Since Florida is basically sea level, there isn't a valley either. I have not looked up why it has that name yet, but is seems misnamed to me.

Moving on, there is a fifteen mile paved loop road that leaves the Visitor Center and heads into the Everglades. The fifteen mile loop has an observation tower at the midpoint. The view of the glades is pretty extensive. On the road you are sure to see many alligators and wading birds.

The beauty of this road s that it is car free. There only three ways to travel on this road. You could walk any or all of the fifteen miles, you could take the two hour tram tour ($27/ adult) or you can ride a bike. There is also the standard National Park entrance fee of $30 which is good for a week.

As we drove by on the Tamiami Trail I pulled over to think about it. Bike riding this loop was something I wanted to do but he hadn't made plans to do it. The bike rental is $9/hour. Compare that to the tourist trap Key West where we had all day bike rentals for twelve buck each, I thought nine dollars an hour was ridiculous. The more I thought about it, the more I realized this was my only shot to see the Everglades on this trip so we went in.

I paid my thirty dollar admission fee, Then we rented bikes. I knew that I would stop at every bird and every gator, so even though we could probably do the whole bike ride in under two hours, it was probably going to take three hours. We picked out the bikes and off we went to explore the Everglades.

We did spend three hours on the road. We ended up seeing about twenty alligators. I saw Wood Storks at three places on our trip, but this was the only place I could get a photo of one. I loved our three hours in the 'glades. Including our thirty dollar entrance fee the bike ride cost us $84. That will hopefully be the most expensive bike ride of my life. That said, if I didn't go for the ride, I'd be regretting it for a long time. The wildlife was incredible.  Photos below

Great Blue Heron

Anhinga

The first gator we saw on our bikes

This was the second gator we saw. He was along the edge of the
road

Fairly certain these are
Red Shouldered Hawks

I get that the Everglades is a sea of grass, but it is wet,
so I was pleasantly surprised to see this Meadowlark pop
up

I so wish the grass wasn't in the way in this photo

White Ibis

There was an active alligator nest very close to the
parking area

Wood Stork

The observation tower is the
halfway point. There are restrooms and a bubbler
but the water sucks

The road through the swamp

Miles of sawgrass just past those trees.

Florida Wildlife without Feathers

   I had multiple goals for this trip. Florida has/had more things on my bucket list than any other place on Earth. It was torture counting down the days over the last month. Many of the things on my list were easy. Some examples were getting a Key Lime Pie while in Key West and ordering a drink in a bar that Hemingway drank at. Others required a little more time commitment and out of pocket expense such as snorkeling at the coral reef.

   But if you know me, then you know many of the things on my bucket list are nature related. I wanted to go birding at two of the most famous birding spots in the world ( Ding Darling NWR and Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary)

   Three of the things on my list didn't involve birds. I wanted to see and photograph an alligator and I wanted to see and photograph a Key Deer. I also wanted to see and photograph an American Crocodile. I have seen gators before and lost photos of them from my childhood. But I wanted to get some decent shots. I knew I'd see the gators. They are as easy in Florida as Bison are in the Badlands. The Key Deer would require some luck and time that I really didn't have. More on them below. As for the croc, I knew there was really no chance, but it was on my list and I was going to try. More on that below also.

   I saw other wildlife in my travels and thought it would be a good idea to put all of my non-feathered friends in one group. 

  As expected, I saw gators n multiple places. I am sure you will see them in multiple blog posts

Big Alligator in the Everglades

Baby Gator near the Shark Valley Visitor Center

 Key Deer are the smallest subspecies of White Tailed Deer in the United States. They are an Endangered Species. The population ranges from 600-1000. Hurricanes can wipe out large portions of their population. Right now the population is about 700. Their main enemy is cars. They have absolutely no fear of cars or people. Collisions are the main reason their numbers have not rebounded despite years of protection. Most of the Key Deer live on Big Pine Key. A few other smaller islands not connected to the Overseas Highway have small populations.

On our way to Key West we went looking for them. We drove down Key Deer Blvd. (I'm not making that up). We took a couple of short trails recommended by the Wildlife Refuge staff. We didn't have any luck. While on our way back to the Overseas Highway I spotted one eating on the side of the road. We pulled over and got a few pics. Being roadside we didn't want to spook it so we gave it some distance.

We moved up the road. We saw another one in a lawn of a church. This one was no where near the road. I took pictures edging closer to it. It never stopped eating. I know the pictures below look like the deer is jittery, trust me it was not. It lifted its head one time and I snapped one picture. I kept getting closer and it just kept eating. I was within 15 feet when I gave up. I knew I was too close to an Endangered Species. I backed off and went back to the car. I'm pretty sure I could have pet it if I tried. I understand now, that they really have no fear of humans and that is probably a bad thing.

Three photos below of Key Deer

    American Crocodiles are another Endangered species in south Florida. Unilke American Alligators, they are shy and stay far away from people. They are not like the famous man-eating crocs of the Nile. Seeing one is almost impossible. There are only about 2000 in South Florida. That includes the Everglades, Florida Bay, and the Gulf of Mexico.

None the less we gave it the old college try. There is a Crocodile National Wildlife Refuge on Key Largo. However it is closed to the public so nesting crocs aren't disturbed. We drove up the road that is the perimeter of the refuge, but it was all forest edge and we couldn't look in.

Then we drove down Card Sound Road. This is one of only two roads connecting the Keys to the rest of Florida (Route 1 being the other). As we were crossing a bridge, I saw a manatee swimming down river. We pulled over and looked for it. We saw it on the other side of the bridge. To my amazement we saw a crocodile sliding down the bridge embankment. If I'd have seen it first I'd have gotten killer shots.

Instead, I got one photo. There are many differences from alligators and crocodiles. I learned them before we went down. They have different shaped snouts, and the teeth that are visible with their moths closed are different. One obvious difference is color. Gators are black or dark grey. Crocodiles are greenish. That is tough to tell if the light is bad or if they are covered in mud. Luckily I had good light. You can see this guy is greenish with black checkers on the tail. I Googled American Crocodile, and they have the checkers on Google Images. Besides the Antillian Palm Swift (more on that later) this crocodile was the best thing I saw in Florida. Cropped image on top, original below.

Laurie mentioned she wanted to see an Armadillo, I realized that the state park we were staying at between the Everglades and Corkscrew was a sandy soil so we went hiking and looking for them. We really didn't expect to see one, but sure enough, one came walking down the path until it heard us.

Thanks to a tip from a birder at Corkscrew Swamp I got to see this raccoon that was feeding on berries in a Palm Tree

I didn't see any sharks snorkeling. However I did see this 8 foot Nurse Shark at the marina of our motel.

The snails below are Apple Snails, they are the main food in a Limpkin's diet. Corkscrew Swamp

 There will be a full post about where and how to swim with Manatee. Until then, here is the best photo I took of one

This Peninsular Ribbon Snake was sunning itself right next to the boardwalk at Corkscrew Swamp

Thanks to the sandy soil at Koreshan State Park, not only did we see the Armadillo we saw this Gopher Tortoise. He was on a mission. Being in front of him taking pictures did not slow him down. He knew right where some taller greener grass was and I had to get out of its way 

Below is a Green Anole. They are native

A Cuban Brown Anole was next to it. They are invasive and taking over