Key West Wildlife

Most visitors have a different view of Key West wildlife than I do. Most people associate Key West wildlife with Key West nightlife. Key West is an amazing vacation location, it also has tremendous sport fishing in every direction. Surprising most people, Key West wildlife is very abundant.

No Name Pub

It would be an understatement to say that most of the places that we visited were established as old-time rustic drinking holes. The No Name Pub is a perfect example of the rustic drinking holes that we visited.

We had a huge advantage in finding these off-the-beaten-path venues because we have friends who have done years of research on the subject. George and Marge have been coming here to Key West nearly every winter for almost twenty years.

Key deer

You might have noticed the picture at the top of the post has a neon deer with a full set of antlers. Unless you see the next picture you might think that this was out of character for the Key West area, but it was not.

Upscale Key West wildlife watering holes

We didn’t actually enter any upscale watering holes when we were here in Key West. They are here and as you can see from the pictures they are very nice. Many are open-air like this one.

The venues we frequented for the last month were also mostly open-air, but not quite as wild-looking as this one located very close to the upscale venues.

Key West Nightlife

We didn’t go out as much as I anticipated after dark. Mostly because parking was an issue for the car. We put lights on our bikes so we could come home after dark. This is probably the first time I have ridden bikes after dark in forty years.

This is a picture of sunset (facing the opposite direction) a little earlier from the same location. I feel compelled to sneak in at least one Key West sunset into this post. As I explained in my last post, Key West sunsets are very special.

Hunting Key West wildlife

There is lots of water obviously being at nearly the end of this chain of islands. Key West has the distinction of being the furthest place in the country that you can drive to in your RV. It is so worthwhile. To explore the mangrove swamp the only way is to carefully move through the tangle of trees on a kayak.

Thankfully most of the spiders are eaten by the small crabs crawling around on the trees. I didn’t point this out to Tami, so perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to mention them in this post. She may have noticed them or maybe this will be the first time she learns about them will be when she edits this. Under the kayak is a tangle of roots. The branches and leaves block the su,n but nothing can really stop the humidity.

Most of the time the path is way too narrow for much paddling and way too narrow for a long paddle. Sometimes you just pull yourself along by grabbing the branches.

Manatee

We have been to Florida three times (the first time in our RV) and during each trip, we have looked for Manatees with limited success. Manatees are about the size of small hippos but don’t have any aggressive tendencies. They may be the most docile animal we have ever encountered. Earlier this year we saw some that weren’t posing for pictures.

Iguanas

The number one target for our kayak trips was the iguanas. They favor the mangrove trees that we spent lots of time kayaking through. They are also very docile but unlike manatees, we have seen a couple of them move very fast. If you sneak up on them and don’t get too close they may pose for pictures. All the following pictures were taken from our kayaks.

Our current weather is cold for Key West. It is a little windy, with overcast skies and almost down to 65 degrees. Further north in Florida it is much colder. The Florida panhandle is below freezing. I’m not commenting to brag about the weather, nor complain but rather to explain. The cool weather in locations usually warm and humid (excellent iguana habitat) creates what the locals call an iguana dropper.

Since iguanas are reptiles, during cold weather they lose their ability to move fast and thus they lose their balance in the tree branches and fall to the ground. We have seen them intentionally jump from the tree branches to lower branches. We don’t expect the weather in Key West to get cold enough to be an iguana dropper.

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