Great Florida Birding Trail site Description:
This urban park offers three miles of trails and boardwalks that wind through hardwood hammock, sand pine scrub, pine flatwoods, willow marshes, and mangrove lake shore. There is a nature center with four aquariums, an observation beehive, and display cases of local animals and plants.
Watchable wildlife:
American alligators, frogs, turtles, American coots, and common moorhens frequent the area surrounding the Willow Marsh Trail. Above the mangroves adjoining Lake Maggiore, look for wood storks, ospreys, bald eagles, and magnificent frigatebirds. Mottled ducks and pied-billed grebes live on the lake year-round and are accompanied by ring-necked ducks and scaup in the fall and winter. The Scrub Island trail allows visitors to glimpse threatened species such as the gopher tortoise and indigo snake, while the Pine Flatwoods trail is home to fox squirrels, raccoons, opossums, and a variety of birds.
Ownership:
City of St. Petersburg
Directions:
From Interstate 275 in St. Petersburg, take exit 4 (54th Avenue South). Travel east on 54th Avenue South to 9th Street. Take a left and head north to Country Club Way South. The nature center is on the right. Enter at Gate 2.
Related Sites:
Other West Central Florida Wildlife Sites
Florida State Parks
| |
