The morning is crisp and clear, highlighting the “assembled multitude,” a mass of gulls and terns that are regulars on Whitney Beach. There’s a lone skimmer in the sand away from the group that isn’t moving and appears to be injured. A woman looking at it tells me she’d just seen the skimmer walk on an injured left leg and plunk down.
Birding is often about being in the right place at the right time. Last winter on Whitney Beach, I had some memorable moments with birds and bottle-nosed dolphins because I was in the right place at the right time
It has been called a pimple, a protrusion and more scientifically — a shoreline anomaly. Specifically the reference is to a 1.67 acre parcel located mid-key, known historically as the Yonkers Property, which has a seawall that juts closer to the Gulf of Mexico than the neighbors — just enough to cause major headache, cost and expense to the town’s beach maintenance program
The Coquina Baywalk at Leffis Key is a gentle place to bird and getting there is part of the experience for me. I start out early from the northern end of LBK, walking over the Longboat Pass Bridge. A brown pelican with a gray back and frosted head startles me by flying out from under the pilings
Bill Johnson relaxes in the wild waters of the Gulf of Mexico off Longboat Key
A Gulf-front estate listed by Michael Saunders & Company agent Linda Roe Dickinson sold for $7.575 million on Casey Key July 15. This became Casey Key’s highest selling property of 2011 and was also the year’s second highest involving residential properties in Sarasota County after the $26 million Longboat Key home that sold earlier this [...]
It is easy to be critical, sometimes innate to be cynical. Especially in a world where 280 million people a day play Xbox 360 killing zombies and recreating historical moments with perversions of Castro, Kennedy and McNamara. This is the world my 10-year-old son inhabits. Surprisingly, even more surreal are his 42-year-old father’s Town Commission meetings where topics are discussed like chewing on a collective trough of tapeworms
South Carolina tourist David Sieradzki was parasailing approximately 1.5 miles off the coast of Longboat Key Monday, June 27, when the motor failed on Fun-n-Sun Parasailing’s 28-foot boat “Almost Heaven.” First responders to the accident
Longboat Key’s highly erosive North End, which only one month ago the churning waters of the Gulf of Mexico within feet of condominiums, is now protected by a new 130-foot wide beach
Sea turtle nesting season begins May 1, and Sarasota County is reminding residents about city and county ordinances that require beachfront businesses and residences to turn off or shield lights along coastlines to protect hatchlings. Southwest Florida beaches host the Gulf of Mexico’s largest nesting population of loggerheads, Kemp’s ridley and green sea turtles.
