The Long Drive

The longest drive we ever took with the Casita travel trailer was a vacation to the Florida Keys. Yeah, I know...it's on the east coast. We stayed in the south. But great Jove it was a long, honking drive! It took two days to get there, driving as I did around 60-65 mph the whole way.

We enjoy the Keys. It was enough like the Caribbean to make it different from the rest of the southern coastlands. I always figured that by now we'd have made a return trip because we had such a great time there. But we just never have gone back. Maybe some day.

View from an elevated overlook on Bahia Honda, where we stayed.

Andy on the big kapok tree.

Hemingway's house.

The Dry Tortugas National Park.

Sun and the Seven-Mile Bridge.

Lighthouse on the fort at the Dry Tortugas.

Tiny little Key Deer on Big Pine Key.

At the sea turtle rescue center.

Threat to the Florida Keys

I was interested to read this article about the extirpation of a native butterfly from one of my favorite state parks, Bahia Honda in the Florida Keys.

One of my family's best vacations was taken in the Keys in 2007. We had an absolutely flawless and wonderful time when we were there. As always, we enjoyed the native flora and fauna of the state. I had noticed while on Bahia Honda that iguanas had invaded the place. I kept trying to get a photo of one of them but they were pretty skittish and would always flee when I paused to take a photo of one of them.

Now it seems--like other invasive species--they are having quite a nasty impact on the island. To the tune of one native butterfly perhaps going extinct because of them. I know that humans are the worst of all invasive species and I have admitted this on this blog at least a couple of times. However, the best thing that Floridians can do when they encounter any invasive reptile, fish, bird, or insect is to kill it. At the very least trap it so that the authorities can dispose of it. This includes the snakes and lizards that are wreaking havoc on the native plants and animals of the state.

On the beach on Bahia Honda. That's the famous A1A running down the Keys off the coast there.

I took this one in the fort in the Dry Torugas National Park. The place is packed with birdlife because of the small freshwater fountain inside the fort that runs for the benefit of the migrating birds.

On the beach in front of the fort. Just on the other side of the water is an island that, unlike the fort, is free of rats. Because of this fact the place is a hell of a rookery and is a haven to nesting native birds. Because of the distance of water, the rats have been unable to colonize it. For much of the year (nesting seasons), the other island is off limits even to humans.

Andy and I hiked a trail on one of the other Keys just north of Key West. This one had a small pond formed by past use of a limestone quarry.

The old man and his son enjoying the beach at the Dry Tortugas National Park.

Key Deer are tiny. A fully grown buck like the one here is smaller than most medium-sized dogs. The doe here was even smaller, and the fawn was like a toy. They're endangered of course, suffering high mortality due to being run down by speeding tourists on the roads of the Keys.

Cute and Not-so-cute

Carole and I see quite a lot of wildlife on our trips. We travel to places where we expect to see a lot of animals, so of course we're always on the lookout for creatures of every type and size. Going through my enormous files of digital photographs (one great thing that technology has brought us is the digital camera--my favorite toy!) I happened upon this trio of images.

One is the Key deer, a sub-species of the common white tailed deer. It's arguable that they're a sub-species at all, and not merely just a typical reduced island version. Limited space and food tells Mr. Evolution to reduce a creature's size (in many cases) to make survival a better bet.

It's breaking a number of laws to feed these very tiny deer. But they must be fed often because they tend to walk up to you if they see you. This group of does and fawns came out of the forest to panhandle. You really have to see these deer. The adults are very small indeed--no taller than a medium sized dog. And the fawns are ridiculously tiny.

The other shots are of the common brown water snake that lives here in the Carolinas. They look intimidating, and are often mistaken for the venomous cottonmouth moccasin. But actually this animal is a classic constrictor with no venomous bite at all. They kill their prey by squeezing it to death.

I saw these water snakes at Landsford's Canal State Park in South Carolina. This one was getting ready to molt. If you enlarge the photo you should be able to see that his eye looks milky. This is because the skin over his body (including his eyes) is almost ready to peel off. His markings are also largely hidden by the process.

Here was another of the same species farther down the river. You can see that since he is not molting his markings are quite evident.