Bight Birds

Yesterday was beautiful, sunny, and breezy as I led a tour that included a walk along the docks at the Key West Bight.  The pelicans seemed to be posing for our cameras.  I'm fond of pelicans.  They're both regal and goofy at the same time! 

These birds are begging for scraps from a fisherman fileting snappers on the dock.

Two egrets joined in.  This was a special treat; they're a shy bird on the bight and not usually so accommodating about being photographed.  But the egrets were no match for the pelicans when it came to snatching fish scraps.

They waited patiently for fish bits the pelicans might miss.  No such luck! 

Orchids in Bloom

Yesterday I worked as a tour guide at Audubon House and Tropical Gardens.  When I wasn't talking history with guests, I was photographing the orchids in the garden.

The orchids are tied to trees with twine.  Eventually the roots will grow around the tree trunk and the twine rots away.  The trees aren't harmed at all in this process.  Below is an orchid tree that's not in bloom right now.  Not so pretty!

Even in silhouette, orchids have an ethereal, mysterious beauty.

The Island Is a Garden

Key West is so lush and green and flowering that it blows me away.  No matter the time of year, something is blooming, something is seeding, something needs to be cut back fiercely lest it take over and turn jungle-like.

But the island wasn't always this beautiful.  When John James Audubon came here in 1832, he describes Key West as being covered with stunted trees, cacti, and vines, tangled together into a scrubby mess.  A few years later, the Second Seminole War broke out, and the citizens of the island and the Navy cut down all that scrub.  They were afraid the Seminoles would be able to hide in that thick mass and attack the little town.  (I personally believe the proprietors of the island wanted to cut it all out to encourage more settlement.  It is a fact that the entire island, impenetrable scrub and all, was platted for development in the 1830s--but never mind.)

What this means is that almost nothing growing here is indigenous.  Old engravings show coconut palms and there are still a few mangroves on the fringes, but other than that it's hard to say definitively that anything is indigenous.  Virtually everything has been brought from somewhere else and planted, which means that the entire island is one big garden.

How anything at all grows here is amazing to me.  The soil is only a few inches deep, slowly built up over millennia on coral rock; Key West is an ancient coral reef turned to stone.  I have personally seen people planting palm trees by using a jackhammer to create a bowl in the rock.  And yet things do grow here, and grow well enough to have to be severely pruned lest they take over entirely.

On the other hand, we don't know what was lost when the settlers and the Navy cut everything down.  As far as I know, this is the only key that doesn't have an endangered or protected species on it.  I hope I'm wrong about that.  But still, was there something precious here that is now gone forever?  We will never know.

But there is a lot of beauty here.  Tropical and semi-tropical plants thrive in spite of limited water and occasional salt-filled hurricanes.  We live with miracles every day.

Big Wind!

I led a tour this morning.  Normally I go to the historic waterfront, where we look for manatees, tarpon, pelicans, and anything else that lives in or on the water.  But not today.  Today there was a strong wind out of the north that sent hats, paper money, and palm fronds scuttling.  And it was strongest on the bight, so we found other things to do and had a different kind of good time.

But me being me, after I dropped off my tourists and ate lunch I took my camera to the bight to see what I could see.  No water sports today.  No ferry to the Dry Tortugas, either.  No schooners out on the water.  Palms flying, flags dancing, people bundled up and carrying on. 

You can tell right away which people are locals.  We're the ones in shorts, flip-flops, and fleece, hugging their bodies against the cold.  Tourists are the people wearing sun hats and sun block and close-toed shoes.  Temps were in the low-to-mid 60s.  Go ahead; laugh.

These chickens, buffeted by the wind but carrying on with their scratching in the dirt, tell the tale better than I ever could.  It's cold.  Uh huh.  It's windy.  Sure is!  But there are good things to eat in the dirt.  And there are good times to be had for we humans, too.  They just don't involve the sea.

I Enjoy the Dawn...

I went out early, heading toward the Duval Street Pier at South Beach.  There were remnants of New Year's Eve still around.  The ruby slipper in which the elegant Sushi, a drag queen, is lowered at midnight on New Year's Eve...

  And a stray hat sitting on top of a trash bin...

But dawn really was rosy-fingered this morning, and a lot of people went out onto the pier to see her rise above the horizon.

A cruise ship made its way down the narrow channel to port...

The chickens got busy scratching up their breakfasts...

The feral cats got up, yawning widely, to observe their world...

Dogs urged their humans out into the cool morning air...

And another day begins in Paradise!

 

The Morning After the Night Before

 

One of the best-kept secrets in Key West are the windows at Fast Buck Freddie's on New Year's Day.  Almost no one is up early enough to appreciate them.  And if they're already set up on New Year's Eve, well, most people are too busy partying in the streets and on the bight to pay attention.

I love the windows for their over-the-top, mad, gorgeous fun.  Fast Buck's opens late on New Year's Day, but they do open and this glorious mess is cleaned up before they do.  So I make the trek to Fast Buck's early, before they clean out the drunken mannequins in their party clothes and glittery top hats, the dead bottles of champagne, and masses of bright streamers.  

The street cleaners have scrubbed away the last scent of stale, spilled booze from the three--that's right, three!--New Year's Eve street parties, the dog walkers are stumbling after their busy pets, the always-confused Key West roosters continue to crow up the sun until noon.  It's another beautiful, warm, breezy day on the island.