On Saturday 14 February we drove down the Florida Keys to Key West. With only a single lane of traffic each way this is a very busy road, but the views are spectacular, particularly along the Seven Mile Bridge section.
The drive from Florida City to Key West takes almost 3 hours so we broke our journey to bird at the Long Key State Park. We walked through the mangrove but there were few birds, however, we did have an overflight of an Osprey. As usual, there were a lot of Turkey Vultures.
Emerging into the open ground of the park, it was hot and the birds were still very quiet, although we did have distant views of a Prairie Warbler, which can be found year-round in Florida. Only when we got back to the carpark did we see more birds, with the best views of an Ovenbird.
By midday we’d completed our circuit around Long Key State Park and then drove the short distance to Marathon where we had lunch at the Cracked Conch Cafe.
Then we visited the Crane Point Hammock Museum and Nature Centre, which was just over the road from the cafe. Although advertised as a good place to see butterflies, there were few around even in the butterfly garden. But we did see a West Indian Mangrove Buckeye, which was a good lifer butterfly for us. However, we enjoyed the walk to the end of the point where there were spectacular views.
We then drove down the southern section of the Florida Keys to Key West.