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.