A Beautiful Hike at Emerson Point, Palmetto FL

Sparky found another gem of a park...Emerson Point....This is a Manatee County Park that has all three designations listed in the photo above. It's a pretty special place! Sparky has been hiking all this past week at different birding spots in Sarasota, and so far, this one is her favorite. It's actually in Palmetto, but close enough and easy to get to. The actual location is the west end of Snead Island, on the north shore of the Manatee River, and Terra Ceia Bay is to the north. The address is: 5801 17th Street West, Palmetto, FL. The hours:

Terra Ceia Trail

Having been there a couple of times now, Sparky is really happy to have found this preserve....There are beautiful shaded areas to walk, a nice trail along Terra Ceia Bay, and MOST of the trails are flat except for the Terra Ceia Bay one. Lots to see along the way....The scenery changes from shady woods to open areas, to slight elevations, to wide open spaces. There are LOTS of birds in the marshes by the mangroves.....Yesterday's walk, Sparky spotted at least 20 snowy egrets, several tricolored herons, two great white egrets and several ibis in the thickets of the mangrove roots.

Emerson is evolving...they are trying to rebuild and restore the wetlands, marshes, and fields in some of the areas so there are signs saying, "STAY ON DESIGNATED PATHS" everywhere. That's ok...there are so many paths that wind in and around the preserve, it's great! There's an Indian Mound there, beautiful staircases and bridges, AND an observation tower. There are many places to sit and catch your breath and see the views of the water. Lots to learn about the local history of the area, too. This would be a great place for a family hike or get together.

Sparky is always amazed at the tangled web of mangroves in some places....Here you can really see how the mangroves' roots help protect and preserve the soil from erosion from storms.

In other spots of the preserve, the mangrove roots are more spread out.....Well, sort of....

Whoever the stewards are of this property, (owned by Manatee County) they certainly do a wonderful job of maintaining this preserve. There are other parks and preserves in the county that you cannot say the same. They even have bee boxes at Emerson! This one was very busy!

Here's a closeup with a zoom...Sparky is glad that the zoom is on her camera....Happy to see many bees from far away, knowing that colonies are collapsing and the bees are in trouble, which means we are in trouble.

It was a beautiful morning this day....If you are a birder, you would probably see many more species of birds up in the trees and canopies of the palms, but Sparky has trouble spotting birds high up. Such a wonderful place to walk and reflect!

Sparky plans to return many more times to this wonderful preserve....Bye for now....

Never a Boring Bike Ride!

Off again on the bike, Sparky goes late in the day....Down I-70 along the sidewalk about three miles, turning right at River Club Blvd., which takes you all the way down and out into Lakewood Ranch, that beautiful residential community with all the wetlands, ponds and bird life....On the way through River Club subdivision, Sparky spots a spoonbill & company....

The spoonbill is wary, but stays put......

Looks like he's talking to the others, doesn't he?

"Hey, fellas....How's the eatin'?

On through more of the beautiful roadway and ponds through the subdivision and back out on the main boulevard.....Woodstorks! Lots of them.....They are still on the endangered list, but there are plenty of them here in the Sarasota/Bradenton area.....This one looks OLD! His grizzly head, grey feathers, but he looks wise....He's wise to Sparky, he starts walking away.....

Sparky stopped by a pond to see a heron and great white egret preening and fishing. They are such big, beautiful birds...You can see why their plumage was so valued back in the day.

This one had an itch....

A moorhen swimming around in a maze of rushes....Loved the patterns of the plants' reflections....

An anhinga up in a tree squawked and warned everybody at the pond that Sparky was there...

And then, Sparky saw a fairly good size alligator on the far side of the pond, slide into the water with a great big SPLASH and head across to the other side, the side that she was standing on. Sparky wasn't worried....Gators normally head into the water when they see someone coming. Besides, Sparky saw two big carp or catfish, and thought maybe the gator was heading for them.

The gator kept coming, closer and closer to the shore, and it was evident that he was NOT interested in the fish. He definitely was watching Sparky.

She was standing on the high bank right above him...She looked around for options just in case he decided to come out of the water. There was a set of three small trees right beside her. That was good enough for her. She really didn't think he was going to come out of the water until she saw his forefront legs starting to pull himself up to the bank. At that point, she was about two feet from the water's edge, so she backed off and went to the trees, waiting to see if he came out any further. He didn't. But he would have been right there at her feet had she stayed there. So she went to the sidewalk which was three feet further out from the bank, gave his resting spot a wide berth and slowly came up behind him, but not too close. She used the camera zoom to get this photo....

She decided it was probably a good time to leave.....Sparky thought this behavior was bold for an alligator, as many times as she has seen them. They NEVER have come toward her and as close as this one did. Perhaps this one might have not eaten for awhile and was just checking things out. Who knows? Sparky lacks a fear of alligators which is probably not a good thing. (SIGH! says an exasperated Eldo. I keep telling her, YOU DON'T HAVE TO GET SO CLOSE! Does she listen? NOPE! She actually texted me and said she was three feet from a big alligator!) But Sparky kept a close eye on the riverbank and didn't turn her back as she hopped back on her bike to head home. Guess the lack of fear comes from biking the Shark Valley Nature Trail in the Everglades where the gators were sunning themselves less than two feet from our bikes as we rode down the trail, counting ten gators or more that time, their heads pointed AT the bikes, not the other way!

It was another great ride in Paradise today.....  :-)

There's a Gator in the Yard! Or Neighborhood Nature Walk

Call the "Gator Boys", Eldy! There's a gator in the yard! The community yard, that is, in the pond that is in front of the condos a half a block down the street. Since our backyard is on the golf course, and we really don't have much of a backyard, just a few feet before we are on the Tara golf course, we probably won't ever see a gator in OUR backyard. But never say never...

Every day, Sparky looks for the neighborhood gator when driving to and from the Publix grocery, which is just five minutes from our house. She has seen this gator several times sunning himself on the grass right by the golf course. (Sparky has this thing about gators, can you tell? asks E.) If she sees the gator, she goes home, hops on the bike, rides like hell to get back as quickly as possible and brings the BIG camera, the one that has a 55-200 mm lens on it. She knows she can't get anywhere near the gator or he'll skedaddle into the water, lickety split.  How does she know that? Because just when she gets back to take his photo, some golfers usually come up on the course, and SWOOSH! He's gone.....And why doesn't she make it a habit to carry the big camera in the car to catch him when she sees him the first time? Because she doesn't want anybody breaking in the car and stealing the camera. There's always the iPhone, but this little gator is too shy to get a good photo with the iphone.

Sparky managed to sneak around the pond today and come up on him on the hill up high. As soon as he saw me come over the hill, SWOOSH! Gone! Boy, can they move FAST! He watched Sparky from the water....

The birds are used to Sparky...

"Here comes that woman agin. She's here almost every day."

"I know, don't look now, but she's here....Maybe she'll get the gator's photo instead of us."

"Too late..sigh...."

The gator is NOT used to people.  Shy and skittish....It's a young one, really not very big. He's more scared of people than people are of him. Floridians are used to gators. They won't bother you if you don't feed them or get too close! Hopefully, no one else has fed the gator you are looking at, or he might associate you with food and come to get some from you! Sparky had her bike to make a fast getaway just in case. Never mind that it was WAY over on the other side of the pond.

Speaking of gators, we went over to Myakka River State Park the other day to look for them on the bridge just after you come into the park. Sparky had first entertained the idea of hiking to the Deep Hole, which is a two mile hike in and a two mile hike back out, to see the hundreds of gators that gather there. After the ranger told her it was extremely muddy and that you would be walking in waist high water the last part of the way to the Deep Hole, Sparky, said, well, maybe another time. The ranger said try in the fall when things have dried up a bit. Guess it was because the Myakka River was almost at flood stage. No gators, no birds, no wildlife to be seen, just lots and lots of water. Some of the campgrounds were flooded, the land on each side of the main road was flooded right up to the edge of the road. We were going to do the Canopy Walk with the cool suspension bridge and the fantastic tower that overlooks the park, but decided we didn't have the right footgear to slosh through the mud and flood. Besides, there were probably LOTS of snakes slithering around in that muck and marsh. So we went to the bird boardwalk and observation deck, and again, no birds. The water was right up to the boardwalk...

We would NOT want to stay in the one campground we saw open with all that standing water around. Bet the mosquitoes are ferocious!

It was a beautiful, although very hot day in the 90's...We saw some beautiful purple marsh flowers, and OH! Almost forgot! We saw a BIG wild boar! Instead of catching the boar through the open car window with the long lens, Sparky decided to get out and get a little closer. The boar heard and saw her coming and ambled off into the deep mucky woods...Bye, bye, boar...

Gonna try getting some photos of dolphins in the next couple of days...No luck with baby turtles, no luck with gators in the park, no boars, no spoonbills lately, time to cycle back to the dolphins on Anna Maria Island. It's snook fishing season, maybe Sparky will have better luck catching a fish or dolphin photo...Bye for now......