Florida's Lower Keys: The Skeleton Keys

Last week, for the first time ever, I visited the Florida Keys along with my wife and daughter.  The trip was predicated not by my long-standing fascination with the string of tropical islands but by an episode of Coyote Peterson's YouTube series.  That's right, the guy famous for making wasps sting him and then acting super dramatic in the aftermath dictated my spring break plans.  My daughter, who has become a Coyote Peterson fan, was absolutely fascinated by an episode wherein Coyote visits an aquarium in Marathon and gets to handle giant live deep-sea isopods.  In the same episode, he also hand-feeds a group of tarpon and ends up with bloody fingers and whatnot.  But it was the shoebox-sized isopods that struck a chord with the kid, and she talked about it a lot until we just decided to go see them for ourselves.  So, that's what we did.

I was really hoping to see some of the few species of reptiles native to the islands while there.  Most notably, the rosy rat snake - Florida Keys' smaller, lighter version of the corn snake.  I wanted to witness the habitat of Nerodia clarkii, or the Gulf saltmarsh snake, in the keys.  I figured if I were lucky I might run into a Florida Keys mole skink.  Despite my best efforts - and they were spirited efforts - we didn't see those species.  Not only was the dry season in full gear, but it has been an historically dry dry season.  We did see the usual invasive suspects, species built to ensure harsh environmental conditions.  There were the Mediterranean house geckos that appeared around dusk on the sides of buildings.  Sun-loving northern curly-tailed lizards gesturing atop landscaping boulders and large chunks of fossilized corals pretty much everywhere we went.  Stately green iguanas foraging along the roadsides, and often, caught on busy roads by rental cars and left to bake into leathery husks in the tropical sun.  Brown anoles on just about any type of surface imaginable.  And greenhouse frogs, those miniscule little jumpers that have made their way across the globe due to their specialized method of reproduction that involves no water and no metamorphosis.  It can be frustrating seeing such an array of established non-native herps, especially in lieu of natives.  But there's also a hard lesson to be learned, and ironically, a sense of respect for these pioneers who are simply trying to survive a world they never asked to be part of, having been chaperoned by human beings at some point in recent history.

This is an area of the resort in which we stayed.  This view gives you the impression that you are on a sandy beach when in fact this is completely manufactured.  The coconut palms have been transplanted from somewhere else and the sand is a thin layer built atop an artificial surface itself built atop a shelf of fossilized coral reef.  You will not find a natural sand beach anywhere in the lower keys because the islands are surrounded in shallow coral reefs.  Still, it's hard to deny the relaxing aesthetics created here.

A non-native collared dove 

A local restaurant offered a selection of tropical fruits and vegetables in a beverage machine

The Florida Keys Aquarium Encounters was a fun place to take the family.  Lumen finally was able to interact with the large isopods.  The water in their tank was bone-chillingly frigid.  She also got to feed wild tarpon, albeit not by hand (obviously)

A young northern curly-tailed lizard on the aquarium grounds

Like anywhere else, there appears to be mixed sentiments about the natural heritage of the Florida Keys by residents.  This sign was posted by a homeowner in Marathon.  I liked it

Back at the resort, while the family was doing normal things like relaxing on hammocks and looking out at the water, I was poking around for reptiles as usual.  In a thick patch of tall ornamental grass, I found a sleeping adult green iguana.  It did not put up much of a fight, so after a few minutes I let Lumen hold it.  It was placed back into the vegetation after about 5-10 minutes.  I realized later that evening that this experience comes exactly one year after her first wild green iguana interaction from the Virgin Islands

A scene from No Name Key, where State Road 4A dead ends into the Gulf of Mexico.  This was formerly the site of a ferry before a highway extended between No Name Key and Marathon.  There are rosy rat snake records from this site so we hiked along the shoreline as well as a former road that leads to nowhere and is now a seldom used hiking path.  There was a stench of what I'm assuming was decomposing sargassum at the coastline.  I can easily mow through most any smells - dead animals, hot garbage, stagnation and so forth.  But five minutes of this and my eyes were beginning to burn.  The family REALLY didn't like it.  So we moved on

The next morning we decided to visit Key West.  Aimee wanted to go, and it turned out to provide a highlight of our trip.  Architecturally, the island is a gold mine.  There are a lot of early twentieth century homes and buildings in original condition, which was surprising to me considering the frequency and power of hurricanes.  I guess the secret is regular maintenance.  Here, a man is painting a front porch

Another old home.  Note the fossilized coral foundation, solid shutters, and steel roof

And then, there was this. To most people, nothing but a rusty old gate, not even worth a second glance.  But the moment I saw it - immediate flashback to my childhood.  Because this is the same 1920's Sears make and model gate I had growing up in Chicago.  I haven't even seen it in over thirty five years but it was like seeing an old friend.

We also visited the legendary Nancy Forrester and her bird sanctuary.  Nancy has lived on Key West since the 1960s, originally working as an artist focusing on marine life.  She owned the last acre of undeveloped land in the historic center of the island and created the "Nancy Forrester's Secret Garden" in the 1980s. After someone dumped a parrot at her house in 1993, she started a rescue that continues today.  Sadly, due to financial woes (read: increased taxes), she was forced to sell most of the wild acre she had spent years meticulously maintaining and today her reduced property is surrounded in upscale villas and rental units.  Her current property still sticks out like a sore thumb in the neighborhood and at nearly ninety years of age she still hosts visitors and educates them about the realities of exotic bird breeding and that industry.  She's a little eccentric, but what artist isn't?  I really enjoyed having a discussion with her, and relayed my own concerns about the captive reptile market.  Once she was aware of my interests, she told me that she used to see five different species of snakes on her property, including the rosy rat snake, which was often seen eating rats.  Now that those snakes are gone, rats have returned in number.  Looking at Key West today, it's hard to imagine rosy rats surviving anywhere.  

I truly, truly hope that her property is kept up in perpetuity.

Big Pine Key contains more undeveloped land than most of the other keys and I wanted to explore it.  We spent a good deal of time there on a very pleasant day.

An old reclaimed borrow pit now supports a pair of American alligators.  Alligators are rare in the keys, maybe the rarest reptile there (although much more conspicuous than the Rim Rock crowned snake or Keys ringneck snake).  These would have had to migrate across the Gulf from the mainland to establish here in the very limited sources of freshwater.  We first saw this adult female out in the center of the pit, then watched her make her way toward the observation platform.  This is an indication that visitors are probably feeding them.  Later, the male showed up as well

A large yellow-bellied slider, native to Florida but probably introduced here.  The pit also contained cichlids, and we were told by a ranger that visitors frequently dump their unwanted fish here

An anhinga along the edge of the pit

Key deer were commonly seen on Big Pine Key as well as a few other of the "quiet" keys

We hiked up to near the northern tip of Big Pine Key and found some rather interesting and beautiful habitat.  Entire swaths of these shrubs/trees were dead, and I wondered if it was related to storm surges inundating these rocklands with saltwater.  In this area, we did come across a very swift black racer, the only snake of the trip

And then back toward the center of the key were these classic pine rocklands.  This particular area is part of the National Key Deer Refuge and is actively managed.  Because I wasn't finding any snakes, I tried REALLY hard to find either a Keys bark scorpion (Centruroides guanensis) or a Florida tailless whipscorpion (Phrynus marginemaculatus).  All I got out of about an hour of searching was a fresh Centruoides molt.  There were zero macroinvertebrates anywhere which was kind of puzzling to this neophyte

Later that night, I committed several hours to road cruising the back roads of Middle Torch Key, Big Torch Key, and Big Pine Key, hoping for a rosy rat snake on the move.  I was skunked.  Photo of the dead end of Dorn Road on the north end of Big Torch Key at around 10:00 PM

Later, I tried once more for scorpions/whipscorpions, using my blacklight I brought with me.  Again, nothing.  The moon was full and very bright; this photo was taken after 11:00 PM on Big Pine Key

On our final day in the keys, we spent several hours at Crane Point Hammock, where I searched high and low for Nerodia.  I didn't see any, but we really enjoyed the place.  Some Nerodia habitat...

Lumen and I under a large Florida strangler fig

We drove to Coral Gables, an historic and trendy/snazzy suburb of Miami, where we stayed a couple of nights.  Our hotel was nice and I was without a doubt the least fancy person in the history of that hotel to step foot inside.  I pulled my rental Toyota Rav4 alongside several Italian sports cars that each cost about as much as my house.  The valet was really nice but inside he must have been wondering who this filthy guy in field pants, a tee shirt, and bandanna thought he was.  A customized Cybertruck slowly pulls up, and a man steps out, wearing an expensive suit and watch, and I caught a whiff of his expensive cologne.  Yep, definitely out of my element.  

To wrap up our trip, we spent the entirety of our final full day in the Everglades.  It was hot and dry but we got to experience some cool sightings.  

One of many Peninsula cooters(Pseudemys peninsularis).  We also saw Florida red-bellied cooters (Pseudemys nelsoni) and Florida softshells (Apalone ferox)

Lots and lots of alligators.  The highlight of our trip was watching a large-ish gator catch and try to eat a large cooter.  The cooter would free itself from the gator's vice grip, only to be caught again and tossed around in the gator's jaws.  The spectacle attracted a crowd, which made the gator feel uneasy.  It took its meal elsewhere.  The last thing we saw was the turtle's emotionless gaze and it fully extended its neck beyond the gator's large teeth and kick in protest.  Nature is pretty brutal, and while it was tough for my daughter to see, it was a lesson. 

Rest assured, there will be a part two to this, one day.  In the wet season.

White wind

 It's times like this I wish I could express myself poetically.

We are in the midst of the first real warm spell of the year.  Yesterday afternoon, I raced home after work to experience the remaining hours of a dream of a day.  A stiff southwesterly breeze blew across the landscape, and the sounds of birds, for the first time in months, filled the air.  Earlier in the day, it had rained for hours, but now the sun was intermittently poking through the clumpy gray clouds.  The temperature stood at a very comfortable 66 degrees Fahrenheit.  My soul was feeling restless.

Once home, I made a quick change, then headed out across the street.  I could have gone anywhere, but the atmosphere was especially powerful in that moment, and I didn't want to lose a moment of it driving around in my car.  Besides, "my" prairie is always devoid of other humans.  There is an air of ancient wisdom here, in the soil, in the rocks, and in the breeze.

Just a few days ago, the prairie was burned.  Where it had been all but impenetrable laid barren black ground in waves.  The aroma of char hung heavy everywhere.  Here and there were items exposed by the flames - smooth glacial erratics, a few golf balls appearing as roasted marshmallows, and a couple of flattened aluminum cans, the old ones that were missing their pop tabs.  In time, these will be swallowed up in a sea of big bluestem.

Muskrat lodge

The crunchy ground turned squishy beneath my boots as I approached a marsh full of cattails that had their tops burned off.  Entering the marsh, I kept my eyes focused for groggy, torpid frogs.  I was surprised that the chorus frogs were not calling.  Great groups of killdeer nervously cried and fluttered about.  Flocks of Canada geese and sandhill cranes made their ways across the sky, and the red-winged blackbirds gave me the side-eye as I trudged my way close to their projected nesting sites.  Across the marsh were a group of ducks that sounded very much like wood frogs.

Northern leopard frog emerging from the cold floor of the marsh

Standing in the middle of the marsh, about shin deep in the muck, a long break in the clouds delivered warm sunlight to my face.  A gentle breeze instantaneously reminded me of a time past.  It felt incredible.  I may have stood there for ten seconds, or ten minutes.  

I'm not sure.

But it signaled the beginning of another season, as in millennia before.  Nature knew the routine.

"This restlessness has always been the foam sleeping in the waves; my heart is betrayed by silence, like a thief who lies in wait" - School of Seven Bells, "White Wind"

Sandhill cranes heading north

Curse of Knowledge

 I’m comfortable admitting that I’m bad at most things.  I’m really bad with names, I’m terrible with numbers, and aside from changing a tire or jump-starting a car, I’m an awful mechanic.  I’m not good with finances.  I wish I were a better writer and public speaker.  I cannot hold my own in a conversation about football, beer brewing, brand names, or corporate workplace culture.  I’m not very handy. I’m not keen on what's going on in Hollywood or who won a Grammy Award or who got eliminated on that one show.

I also really don’t like small talk.  I don’t know how to chit chat for the sake of avoiding awkwardness.  I much prefer what most would consider “awkward silence” - I just call it “silence”.

“Cold out there??? HAHAHA”

“Yep, it sure is…”

“We could use a warm up!  WHERE’S THAT GLOBAL WARMING?!”

“I mean, it’s Jan-”

“We had that warm up the second week of December, remember that?  Or maybe it was the third week of November.  Anyway, I was out there in shorts!  It felt like Florida!  BRING MORE OF THAT ON!!”

“Well, uh, that wouldn’t-”

“BUUUUT if we have to suck this up for another few months I guess it’s not the end of the world.  Florida IS nice and all but there are also gators and snakes and “tHe sTaTe BiRd”, the mosquitoes HAHAHA.

*Me scheming to find a way out of this stupid conversation*

But speaking of gators and snakes, those are two of a select few things I do know about and like.  Look, I didn’t choose this life, the life chose me.  

Most people who know and like snakes know a lot about them.  You’re either all in or you’re all out.  What happens is you develop a fondness for something most people make ugly faces at, and then you have to double down.  By that, I mean learn about and become fascinated by snakes and then constantly defend them against a contrarian society unwilling to offer a moment of their time to allow you to explain why snakes ought to be respected and not maligned as if they are Satan incarnate.  It’s frustrating from this side of the line, watching otherwise intelligent and fully functioning adults contort their bodies and spew the most illogical accusations against something they know little to nothing about.  Few things make people do this.  Spiders, sure. Coyotes are culprits in suburban mom circles. 

Sometimes, in a controlled environment where I have a captive audience, I get to talk about snakes (or salamanders, or turtles, or frogs, etc) for people who have left the comfort of their homes to learn.  I do not take this lightly.  These talks are usually held in libraries but sometimes at universities or other large venues where travel, parking, and other logistics can be tricky.  That’s a lot of pressure on me to deliver.  But here’s where I'd struggle the most - exactly what will I say?

For a long time I’d present a slide show and just talk about what I thought people wanted to know.  For example, if my topic was native turtles, I would first summarize what a turtle is, touch on turtle cladistics, maybe focus on a select few local species, and then always end with conservation.  Audiences appeared engaged, so I just repeated the technique time and time again.  

But as time went on, I noticed that I was fielding some elemental questions, few of which had been derived from my talk.  “What does a turtle’s shell feel like?  How can you tell the age of a turtle?  What should I do if I see a turtle on the road?”  I began to get the feeling that the phylogeny of the family Emydidae was not a burning topic in the minds of general naturalists on a Thursday evening.

Fun and unpretentious titles work best

 The problem I had gotten myself into was that I had become ultra herp-centric.  One may call it an obsession.  And I had long gotten past the Herps 101 phase.  I had forgotten how to effectively communicate my topics to a layperson.  Reminding myself that most people understandably do not have even a fundamental understanding of what a reptile or amphibian is became an important step.  But did you know that some people don’t even consider a snake an animal?  Seriously.  A cow, a pig, a lion, those are animals - but a snake is something else.  

My point is, unless you’re drafting a scholarly paper, use the KISS method (keep it simple, stupid). Know your audience. You can easily distance yourself from some truly worthy folks by allowing the nerd factor to take over.