February 4, 2025

We can see night launches from Cape Canaveral down here in Key West. We got up early this morning for the 5:15 a.m. launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which sent more Starlink satellites into orbit.

Tim took this video with our night vision camera. I doubled the speed of this video. The original video is 6 minutes long. We were able to see the rocket about 1 minute 15 seconds after launch.

A couple of nights ago we had a really nice view of the Moon and Venus. I snapped this photo with my cell phone. The catamaran in the photo is anchored near our boat.

The Moon and Venus

…and in the bird world…

The Ring-billed Gull was back at Mallory Square. This might have been a different bird than the one I wrote about recently. This one was leaving everyone alone.

Ring-billed Gull

The White-crowned pigeon is common in the Caribbean and the Florida Keys. On a recent late afternoon as we were walking back to our dinghy, we saw 8 of them sitting on top of the telephone wires.

White-crowned Pigeon

White-crowned Pigeon

White-crowned Pigeon