We were both feeling lazy today. We chose to go to the hiking trail at nearby Curry Hammock State Park. After a short walk along the Florida Keys Overseas Heritage State Trail, it winds for a mile and a half through hardwood hammock and some mangroves, with two bay-side overlooks (key and crab by zanna).

Quoderat photographed a kind of spider we’ve not seen before, looks like a Silver Argiope.

Great southern white butterfly (by zanna)

We’ve made it into the Keys now. This area is probably my favorite part of Florida socially as it’s much more laid-back and just relaxed. The entire atmosphere is different — less charged, less frenetic — even as touristy as it is. Today was a travel day and we had all of our belongings in the vehicle. Since we didn’t want to stop anywhere for that long, we visited the small aquarium and displays of reef wildlife at John Pennenkamp Coral Reef State Park.

We saw some anemones. (Photo by zanna.)

And this yellowhead jawfish. (Photo by quoderat.)

And these, uh, tentacly things from a Japanese manga…whatever they are. Marine biologists we are not. (Photo by quoderat.)

Zanna found this shed cicada exoskeleton and took a photo of it. As shed exoskeleton photos go, it’s top notch.

Then we made a brief stop at Windley Key Fossil Reef Geological State Park, where Key Largo limestone or keystone — limestone that is chock full of coral fossils — was quarried until the 1960s. Some examples of large cut blocks can still be seen in the park. (Photo by zanna.)

As we made it to the very-colorful exterior of our hotel room, a polka-dot wasp moth greeted us at the door. (Photo by quoderat.)

Dagny Johnson Key Largo Hammock Botanical State Park could use better signage; we missed it on the first drive by, thanks also to an unhelpful location from Google Maps. It resides “on land bought up in 1982 after the financial demise of Port Bougainville, a project which would have included 15 hotels and over 2000 condos.” (wiki) Its entrance has a large archway fitting for a housing development, and visitors walk on pavement that is beginning to crumble and other bits of construction from that earlier intended use. Some interesting history of Key Largo, including the changing of hands and various land use, is recounted here.

The stones used here are made from keystone, a limestone thick with fossilized corals. (photo by quoderat)

Several signs, and more importantly tags on the actual trees, identify notable species along the trail. The tropical hammock here is very dense, with the trees often arching over even the two car-widths paths.

Trunk of a blolly tree (by quoderat)

Wild coffee (by zanna)

Where the tidal waters reach, the hammock turns to mangroves. We were there during high tide, and the outer loop of the trail was submerged. Quoderat found a millipede near here. (photo by zanna)

We saw a couple of grebes and many fish in an excavated channel in the middle of the loop trail. (by quoderat)

On our way back, we watched while a white ibis wrangled and snapped at and eventually ate a huge, wriggling and very unappetizing looking (to us) centipede. (by quoderat)

Last night the sky opened up and dumped at least an inch a rain, and this morning the clouds were foreboding and tempestuous as we drove back into Everglades National Park. The sky remained threatening and the wind was a gale off Florida Bay at Flamingo Visitor Center — over 30 miles from the park entrance — so we waited in the car for either the weather or our patience to subside.

Eventually it began to clear and we headed to Christian Point Trail. We didn’t manage to get more than halfway down this one as it was wade-only after a bit.

The trail began through mangroves and through muck which a short boardwalk bridged. (Photo by zanna.)

The water at the start of the trail was this odd umber color. (Photo by quoderat.)

We found this orchid growing on one of the trees. (Photo by quoderat.)

Glasswort was one of the most common plants as the trail passed into wet prairie. (Photo by quoderat.)

This crayfish was crossing the trail ahead of us and raised its claws defensively as we passed. Or perhaps it was just applauding our footwear. (Photo by quoderat.)

We also visited Pahayokee Overlook and its short boardwalk. This really allowed one to see why the Everglades is sometimes called the “Sea of Grass.” (Photo by zanna.)

In the Everglades, elevation changes everything. Only a few inches of difference can create a completely altered ecosystem. The dwarf cypress trees in the photo above are almost certainly the same species as in the photo below, and the much smaller ones are likely to be older than their consanguine counterparts that grow taller and much faster in better conditions. (Photo by zanna.)

Immediately outside the city areas of greater Miami, the agriculture starts. Lots of squash and tomatoes — the fresh produce that stocks grocery stores in the winter months. A few minutes beyond and you reach Everglades National Park.

As with all of Florida, a few inches difference in elevation completely changes the ecosystem. From the Long Pine Key day use area, the short Three-in-One Trail covers pine rockland, tropical hardwood hammock, and freshwater marsh. As we are here in the dry season, the marsh had no standing water, allowing us to cross the grasses dry-footed to the Long Pine Key Trail.

We saw several halloween pennant dragonflies patrolling the marsh grasses and pinelands. (by zanna)

Quoderat spotted and photographed this red-banded hairstreak while I was trying to get more red-breasted woodpecker shots.

In the dense tropical hardwood hammock, we entered deep shade accompanied by a several degree drop in temperature. (by zanna)

Backlit gumbo-limbo bark. (by quoderat)

Though thistles are everywhere, we aren’t familiar with this particular kind. (by quoderat)

Ours was the only vehicle when we first pulled into the easy Pinelands trail. Signs explained that the tree snails in the Everglades developed distinct color patterns in isolated hardwood hammocks where they eat lichen in the (even more) humid summer months and estivate (hibernate) through the dry months. In the past, collectors had sometimes burned down hammocks after harvesting the snail shells in order to make their collection more valuable. (by quoderat)