More photos of the
Dry Tortugas N.P.

Note: All the photographs shown here were taken by Antonio Fernandez, author of this site, during our family visit to the park in the Summer of 1996.

Sea oats grass Sea oats growing in the east coast of Garden Key. The tip of Bush Key can be seen in the background. Bush Key is the nesting grounds for the sooty tern during the months of March and September. Approximately 80,000 terns gather on this area during the nesting season. They come from the Caribbean Sea and west-central Atlantic Ocean, egg-laying starts as early as February when the birds start arriving here. Bush Key is closed during those months, but the activity can be observed from the fort with binoculars.

View of Bush Key

This is a better view of Bush Key and its surrounding shoal. Photo taken from top of the fort eastern wall. Part of the coast of Garden Key is seen in the foreground while Long Key can be seen in the background to the left of Bush Key.

The sooty tern (Sterna fuscata) is a Florida bird that nests exclusively in the Dry Tortugas. About 80,000 adults breed each year on Bush Key. One egg per nest is laid in a shallow scrape on open sand or under scattered shrubs during late February or early March. After the breeding season, which ends in August, sooty terns leave the Tortugas and become strictly oceangoing birds.

Sooties do not dive for fish but surface feed, capturing minnows, flying fish, squid, and other top-dwelling species. This tern is all black above, except for white forehead, white below. Inmature birds have dark heads, white-flecked upperbacks, and shallowly forked tails.

(Notes taken from Florida's Birds by Herbert W. Kale, II and David S. Maehr)

Photo: © Antonio Fernandez - 1996 - A couple of Sooty Terns flying over Fort Jefferson.

This pelican was photograph as it rested in the South coaling dock ruins in Garden Key. The brown pelican was recenlty removed from the endangered species list.

The brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) is probably Florida's most distinctive and widely recognized bird. This bird shows typically four different sets of plumages:

Juvenile plumage: dark above with white underparts.

Second-year plumage: dark breast and belly, with head and neck a dull brown.

Breeding adult: dark body feathers, dark reddish-brown on sides and back of neck, and white and yellow on the top of the head.

Post-nuptial adult: white feathers replace the rich brown neck feathers of courting birds.

(Information obtained from Florida's Birds, by Herbert W. Kale, II, and David S. Maehr).

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