An abundance of wings

An abundance of wings

Friday January 29, 2021

After breakfast, Mike worked on repairing the forward head.  It seems hard to believe but it seems to be leaking.  Thankfully, it’s a leak on the ‘clean water’ side but we don’t really want seawater all over the inside of the boat anyway.  Hopefully, that’s fixed now but time will tell.  After the toilet repairs, we set off to the butterfly garden.

Once inside the large greenhouse, the movement of the insects was perplexing.  There were so many fluttering wings of different colors and shapes moving in unpredictable directions that, initially, I felt overwhelmed.  The warm humidity of the greenhouse was in contrast to the cool breezes outside.  After a time, I felt more adjusted to the conditions.  The display of butterflies was magnificent.  Additionally, there were birds free flying in the space.  Not just flying either, many little button quail were making their way in and out of the plants with little regard for the visitors.  A pair of Caribbean Flamingos provided an intermittent noisy sound track.  Many of the other birds produced much more subtle noises. I wish I could say that I was able to identify all these birds but alas not so.  I think these are tropical species, perhaps from all over the world.  Perhaps the only significant downside was that the space did get quite crowded at some points.  If we go again we will try to arrive just at opening time.

We found a cafe with outside seating for some lunch. Then we walked along to Higgs beach further to the east of Fort Taylor State Park.  It’s not as scenic as the aforementioned beach but seemed less densely occupied.  As we wandered along we found the grounds of the Key West garden club and took a walk around.  The orchid displays were particularly numerous.  I would imagine that there must be some species blooming at any time of year. 

By the time we returned to the boat, I could tell that I’d been on my feet for several hours.    

Before we close, I do want to mention that we lost a close friend today. Our next-door neighbor Ken Schwartz passed away this morning after a long battle with glioblastoma. He was a wonderful man and our hearts go out to all of his family.

Gloria

24 42.220 N, 81 06.131 W

A selection of butterfly and bird photos taken at the Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservatory. A spectacular place to visit. It can feel hard to get good shots because the both birds and butterflies are constantly on the move. But once I got into the swing of things and figured out what works best it was really fun. Most of these are taken with 105 Nikkor micro lens using SB500 flashgun and setting both speed and aperture manually and letting the flash get the right exposure. Getting adequate depth of field is a challenge. I have little or no idea what any of these species are !