In early February Brett and I headed an hour south of us to the Bradenton/Palmetto area to take a walk at Robinson Preserve and have lunch afterwards in the nearby Cortez fishing area. It was cold so we got to the park a little later, around 9am. It was sunny when we first started walking the trail and got to the tall observation tower.

On the top floor we could see all around the area. It’s a large preserve that sits on the bay and the back area facing Sarasota was pretty dried up. In the summer most of the area in the bottom shot would be under water and swampy.

Fiddler crabs covered the little beach area at the bottom of the tower. It was funny to watch them running around chasing each other. They are usually shy and run to their holes when people are around but these did not scatter when I walked up. They are really pretty when the sun hits them, showing off the pink and purple.

We followed the trail around the small lagoon and by the time we got on the other side the sea fog had started to come in.

We made our way out to the beach and the fog kept getting thicker. The Sunshine Skyway bridge was out there somewhere.

The birds were pretty scarce and we only saw a few ibis and snowy egrets feeding out in the fog. We had a long walk back to our car and were starving so it was off to lunch.