LIONS & TIGERS & BARES, OH MY!
Well, maybe not the African lions -but we do have non-mountain mountain lions -native panthers. When called by a panther, don’t anther. But that’s unlikely; they’re EXTEREMELY rare…
Wouldn’t be surprised about the snakes, the climatological environment down here is great for not just human tourists to grow roots… We have all SORTS of foreigners and transplants here…
Parrots? Not just greens and lorikeets -which are abundant. I regularly see several green flying and squawking southwards in the AM around 8, and back north in the evening around 6 or 7. There’s messes of them at two golf courses that I know of -one in Coral Gables, one in North Miami. There’s probably others, MANY others, around town…
We sometimes see a strikingly beautiful pair of big blues flying south while we wait for the train at the University Station in South Miami in the mornings on the way to work, and sometimes see them flying north across from the station when I’m on my way to the gym around 4-5 at nite. There’s a 10-srory building along side the University Center small strip mall across US 1 from University Station; it’s sides are chunks of granite embedded in a concrete adhesive matrix. I once saw two big red parrots gripping the stones about and taking in the scenery from about 8 floors up for as long as it took me to cross the street and go to the gym -about 10 minutes or so.
When I was in high school, one of my girl friends lived behind the Parrot Jungle in south Miami, now Pinecrest. They frequently had red, blue, green and yellow parrots in their yard, as did all the neighbors. They loved to check out the various tropical fruit trees around and feast in season.
Iguanas? We currently have our buddy Fred -named by those folks I intro’d to kayaking and wrote about a month or so ago here. Fred lives in our attic, and cones and goes through a small opening far back and up under the eaves over the carport. We hear him walking around upstairs every so often as his -“his”, as we have no idea if it’s a him or a her, really -longish nails scrape across the ceiling.
And they are now virtually ubiquitous around Miami where people -and big dogs -AND cats -are tolerant of them.
Where I went to pick up all those golf balls at Crandon Park GC on Key Biscayne? 30 or 40 of them live there-some are huge, perhaps 6 feet long, golden, brown-striped, spiked, wattled, fat old dinosaur-like mini-monsters that stalk about the course, hautily rising up on their front legs to disdainfully watch you flub another shot…
And we have all sorts of other invasive flora and other fauna -especially freshwater fish varieties -around town.
We’d probably have a lot of snakes, except people and pets are not particularly tolerant of them, even the most beneficial and harmless varieties, and no self-respecting snake would be caught DEAD in some of our “human” built environments…
Where’s Cuda? He has some tales about the monkeys in Central Florida…
And Jim? Those poor animals in the Keys never really came out and pulled SOTers off their boats in their search for a better meal -they may have scrambled aboard, but I’ll bet the yakker bailed… OTOH, can’t say as I’d blame them, intelligent creatures left like that… And as far as I know, they’ve now been trapped and either reloed or euthanized.
Well, it’s just one more reason to come down (or, OTOH, to AVOID coming down, LOL!) to our sometimes strange state to
Paddle On!
-Frank in Miami
Bump… NM
LOL!
The cold water form your hose shocks their cold blooded metabolism …they are in mild shock and therefor do not move.
don’t forget the large roaches
they are also part of our fauna down here.
Southern South Florida
has GOT to be the strangest place in the continental United States…and I cannot imagine a more comfortable and wonderful kayaking environment.
Fed one…
to one of the giant spiders in the backyard the other day. Battle of the Titans!
Roaches are so slick it slid out of the web (a small 8’ diameter one) three times! Finally it’s feet got hooked in.
Did you know appellation “Palmetto Bug” is an invention of the Florida Chambers of Commerce?
Picture of a sign
http://members.aol.com/jasenj1/Oklawaha/Story2.html
Trip report of a 3-day solo canoe trip I did. Has a picture of a WARNING
MONKEYS ARE DANGEROUS
sign from the Silver River. I did see wild monkeys on that trip, but it was at twilight and the lighting was too dim to get a picture.
- Jasen.
SPEAKING OF BUMP -IN THE NIGHT, OR
day…
“Bares” -‘topless-tolerant’ zones of Haulover (North Miami) and northen end of Key Biscayne, and a variety of sunny day waterfront patios, balconies, & back yards, that kayakers can sometimes stuble upon -which the noisey jetskis & powerboats cannot simply because they announce their presence long befor the fact, UNlike we kayakers -are those that go bump in the day.
As far as those that go bump -AND the requisite grind… Those are the nightime specials, and they’re to be found in a variety of, er, ‘gentlemen’s clubs’ around town. Tho’ I kinda gotta wonder at the term gentlemen and the types that frequently frequent said clubs…
Yeah, sure enough, we have far more than our share of strange & exotic imports -and they ain’t ALL exotic “dancers”, either.
But it sometimes DO make for an interesting place to
Paddle On!
-Frank in Miami
Silver river monkey pictures
go to www.geocities.com/mcaquaholics click on pictures and check out the “silver river monkeys” album
How can you?
Jasen how can you make a three day trip on the silver river? The river is very short and can be paddled in a day? where did you go?
Silver River Monkeys
I paddled the Silver River yesterday and spoted a couple of monkeys. Also spoted several of the dreaded creatures that keep migrating south. THE DREADED TROURIST! They were hanging out of glass bottom boats.
Roaches
I heard a number once that Florida has 600 different types of roaches.
Brian