Key West Birds.

2-12-18 SHORT HILLS: Judy said that the best bird pix from Key West weren’t posted, and that I should do a Key West bird special. Not needing much encouragement to do another post, I complied with her suggestion. The birds at the Butterfly Conservancy are not native to the area except for the flamingoes.

We saw frigate birds and possibly ospreys that didn’t pose for me.

Here in NJ, I saw a red-wing blackbird yesterday and a grackle today, neither has been here since last fall. The last two days were pretty warm and very rainy.


Chickens wander all around the old part of town. They are feral descendants of fighting cocks.

Brown pelican.

The next six pix, are from the Butterfly Conservancy,, American flamingo.

Flamingo profile. These birds can be native to the Keys.

Mandarin duck, male. [ID from Mike R.] on the ducks and finch.

Mandarin duck, male. they aren't native to the Keys.

Zebra finch, female, also not a native.

Mandarin ducks, pair.

The two birds on the top left are royal terns, the rest are laughing gulls. the brownish one at he bottom is immature. They are all in non-breeding mode.

Black skimmers in flight, Gulls on the railing.

Palm warbler.

Shallow water on the reef with a gull, egret and cormorant.


Cormorants at the mangrove island. The light colored one is an immature.

Back in NJ, this fierce looking bird is the first grackle of the season. I also saw a red-wing blackbird yesterday. They often travel with the grackles, and neither has been here since the late fall.

Last Key West.

2-10-18 SHORT HILLS: Now we’re back in the cold and rain, today and tomorrow, missing the sun of Key West. The last morning we hiked back up Duval St to Le Petit Paris with Lynn and Bill for breakfast. Excellent. Then it was check-out, taxi to EYW and United to EWR.


Brown Pelican and Laughing Gull share a railing.

Our hosts Deb and Sid and GO Marc.

Banyan tree flashing its trunks.

Flag of the Conch Republic, no longer independent of the USA, but given the situation, who knows.

More Key West.

2-8-18 KEY WEST, FLORIDA: This was an early start day. We had to be on the dock by 8:30 for another sail cruise. Of course we didn’t leave until 9:15. Lynn, Bill and Ken joined us for a Danger Charters morning sail to the reef west of the island where we snorkeled.

The water was about five feet deep with a sandy bottom, about 70° and not very clear. We saw mostly sponges, a few small, sandy colored fish and a couple of small jellies. We were back in the boat in twenty minutes.

We passed places where the water over the reef was only a few inches, and wading birds were working the shallows.

Our second stop was at a mangrove island, which we kayaked around. The mangroves create land by growing in the shallows and retaining debris and trapping sand. The islands are home to birds. This one had pelicans, gulls and turkey vultures, but cormorants were the most common species. Other mangrove islands have different birds populations. One gap in the mangroves, ‘The Green Room’, was big enough for all six kayaks. We had a mini-lecture about black mangroves and red mangrove trees, how they deal with ocean salinity.

On the trip back to the dock at the hotel, we saw two parasails aloft, one with three people aboard. A new cruise ship had come in while we were sailing out.

After a quick lunch at a Papa Chichi’s Cuban Cafe, we napped until the Farewell Dinner.


Black skimmers at Margarita hotel also having a reunion.

Cruise ship staying in the middle of the channel.

The reef is only inches deep in places. A mangrove island in the distance.

Snorkeling on the reef.

Mangrove island inlet. 'The Green Room.'

Mangrove island.

Turkey vulture, looking for work.

Double-crested cormorant. Check out the blue eye.

Danger Charters ketch.

Looks like fun.

Key West.

2-7-18 KEY WEST, FLORIDA: We, the class, went for a trolley car tour of the island shortly after breakfast. Jim, our guide in the second of three open-air trolley cars, basically a bus, was a non-stop talker, and we learned history, local lore and legends, economy and sociology of Key West. It took about ninety minutes.


Trolley riders.

Afterwards a group of nine of us walked up Duval St, had lunch at La Te Da restaurant. All dining in Key West is outside, but usually under a roof or umbrella. The cuisine is heavily into seafood, and conch stew/chowder is a local favorite and recommended by this diner.


Lunchers.

This lunch was on the way to the Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory. There were a few stops for tee shirts on the way. The butterflies are in a big, two-story greenhouse. It’s hot and humid inside, filled with tropical plants and trees, a stream flows out of a small pond and winds through the exhibit. In addition to many, many butterflies, there are two flamingoes, some ducks and other birds in the trees. I have pix, but few ID’s as yet.


Blue Morpho butterfly and friend.

Falmingoes and ducks in the corner.

That's a wow.

We took a break back at the hotel before the sunset cruise on a big catamaran operated by Fury Key West. We swarmed all over the boat as it motored around the ocean west of Key West, serving cold beverages and mingling with dozen of other sunset cruisers. It was a successful sunset and I saw the green flash, just as the sun disappears below the horizon, for the first time.


Pirates out for the sunset.

Our boat.

A moment before the green flash.

 Our group taxied back to Duval St. after the cruise, for dinner at Ocean Grill & Bar. It was truly excellent. As has often been the case, Margaritas preceded the meal. Judy made the rez for this meal after searching through Zagat.

Judy and I walked back alone as the rest of the group taxied away, and we stopped at Le Petit Paris for desert and coffee, also on Duval.

Not in Vermont.

2-6-18 KEY WEST, FLORIDA: We’re on a trip to soak up a little warm, and we found the eighties today. We flew from EWR to EYW, arriving at midday, and taxiing to the Margaritaville Resort where there was no room for us until 4 PM. The resort is on the water at the western end of the last of the Keys, Key West. The resort is huge, with hundreds of rooms. We had lunch on the waterfront with Lynn, Helaine, Marc, Paul and Bill, all of whom had rooms already. Not having a room, Judy and I explored the neighborhood.

We walked south on Whitehead St. past Truman’s Little Whitehouse, seeing attractive older houses, one an arboretum, one a B & B, all lavishly landscaped. We turned the corner and went to Duvall St., which is all bars, restaurants, tee shops, but no tea shoppes, and souvenir spaces. It all treads the line between honky-tonk and sleazy. Nearer the water there are some old brick buildings, perhaps originally warehouses, now used commercially as malls and shops.

At sunset there was a reception for my college class, celebrating our eightieth birthday. There are about 140 people here. While we chatted, a massive cruise ship that had been moored here left, giving us a view of the ocean.


That massive thing at the end of the dock that looks like a skyscraper that has fallen on its side , is a gigantic cruise ship, able to carry thousands. It totally blocks the ocean view of many of the guests of the Margaritaville Resort. It left the dock a little after dark. The Margaritaville is an equally gigantic resort that is the center of our gathering.

Our room wasn't ready for a few hours after we arrived, so we walked around the neighborhood at saw several old houses on Whitehead St. Some with historic markers, some re-purposed as B & B's, and one was Truman's Little Whitehouse. We were pleased to see that there appeared to be no damage from the hurricane.

Here's another with a blue ceiling on the upper gallery. We have seen that before, and in other houses here, it discourages ghosts from hanging around your house and causing mischief because the ghosts are fooled by the blue ceiling into thinking that there is no ceiling, but open sky. This, somehow, is an anathema to the loose spirits.

Here's another one with a white ceiling. They don't care a fig about ghosts, and that might be a fig tree in the front yard.

One of a number of roosters we saw, all this same breed, and all talking to the neighborhood.

Duval St., a block to the east is lined with souvenir shops, tee shirt shops, bars, and restaurants and crowds.

A Day at the Museum.

2-3-18 SHORT HILLS: We’re into February, but the groundhog said it’s going to stay cold. So far he’s quite right. There is no more snow for the moment.

Jon is visiting here for a few days following a business trip to the area. We took him to dinner at Marcus Samuelsson’s B & P restaurant last night and before that to 11 Clinton St, also in Newark.

Yesterday we went to the Met museum to see the Michelangelo exhibit, an impressive number of drawings and some sculptures and paintings. There is a photo-montage of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, one quarter size, that lets you see the finished frescos and his preparatory sketches for comparison.

There was also a Rodin exhibit to mark the centenary of his death. Of course, no visit to the Met is complete until a walk through the impressionist galleries.


The Met is so full of eye candy, my head is always turning from side to side and up and down.

Rodin sculpture.

Michelangelo, Il Divino, drawing.

Michelangelo, bust of Caesar.

Michelangelo sketch for one scene of the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

Michelangelo, the finished scene.

Impressionists. I won't bother with artist ID's, assuming you all know all of them.

Turkey Tracks in the Snow.

1-29-18 VERMONT: The end of January is in sight, will anyone miss it when it’s gone? We had a couple of warm days, in the forties, but now it’s back below freezing.

We had dinner in town with Shari and Dave last night, and John was here for dinner the previous night. Ken arrives today, and we go back to town for tonight’s dinner.

I snowshoed around the pasture with the dogs on one of the warm days. The icy crust is so thick that the dogs stay on top most of the time, only breaking through the crust occasionally. When I threw tennis balls for the Goldens, the balls flew along the ice, giving the dogs a good run. Where there were dustings of drifted snow on top of the icy crust, I saw bird footprints, big ones, as big as the dogs foot prints. Probably turkey tracks, crows have three forward toes and a fourth tow pointing backward.

The dogs are early risers, usually up at first light, we would rather sleep in a bit, but sometimes the sunrise is worth it. I got a couple pink pix on Saturday.


The dogs are always early risers, so sometimes we get an early morning surprise.

Pink and blue.

The snow is covered with a layer of ice, making everything too bright and shiny.

Bird tracks between Gus and the ski pole. Those prints are as big as Gus'. Turkey, I assume.

Here's a better picture of the foot prints. The spacing and size means a big bird.

The snow cover is thin and the bare spots around the trees are getting bigger.