Manatee

Located on the south end of Anna Maria Island, Leffis Key Preserve has a prominent (26-foot!) hill with a panoramic view of Sarasota Bay and the Gulf of America. Packed shell trails and boardwalks traverse a splendid combination of mangroves, mudflats, tidal ponds and coastal ridge. After walking over the bridge, check the mound on your left, which can have Common Ground-Dove and Palm Warbler. The hill area has been cleared of exotic plants and replanted with a variety of natives such as Sea Grape, Southern Red Cedar, Sea Oat and Gumbo Limbo. Explore the brief trails and boardwalks which run through the hardwood patches and mangrove forest to observation platforms on Sarasota Bay. Look and listen for Neotropical migrants in spring and fall.

Duette Preserve contains the headwaters of the Manatee River and is the largest preserve in Manatee County’s land preservation program. The preserve helps safeguard the water supply for both Manatee and Sarasota counties, and it protects pine flatwoods, oak scrub, hardwood swamp, depression marsh and dry prairie habitats, plus ponds, streams, sloughs and Clearwater Lake, too. The charismatic Florida Scrub-Jay is but one of the preserve’s species that benefits from ongoing restoration and management activities.

Emerson Point forms the western tip of Snead Island, where visitors will experience more than 4,500 years of history and will find a wealth of amazing birds and wildlife. Including a paved trail that runs along the road through the entire preserve, 6.5 miles of trails and boardwalks can be explored; 9 trails wind through uplands, tropical hammocks of Gumbo Limbo and Live Oak trees, coastal berm, and mangrove estuary, each with respective birding opportunities.

Although not an actual island, this site locally known as “Beer Can Island” encompasses the north tip of Longboat Key. Park at the west end of Broadway St. and follow the short boardwalk to the beach. Although the tip was once accessible only at low tide, the beach has been renourished, and now visitors can walk northward for 0.8 miles all the way to the Longboat Key bridge.

Numerous wading birds, shore birds, and migratory songbirds are routinely observed at the site in coastal northwest Bradenton. Watch for Wood Storks, White Pelicans, Roseate Spoonbills, Clapper Rails, Southeastern American Kestrels, Great Horned Owls, Bald Eagles, Ospreys, Double-crested Cormorants and a variety of ducks, herons, egrets, sandpipers, plovers, gulls and terns.