Best Birding and Hiking Places on Pine Island

 Hello Pine Island afficionado's.  I have been away from my Pine Island Blog for a while due to helping an elderly relative.   Now I'm back and enjoying Pine Island as always.

On my morning bike ride, I saw this beautiful roseate spoonbill down by the pier in Pineland.  Roseate spoonbills are an endangered species, but it is not unusual to see them, and many other shore birds, in the tidal basins that surround Pine Island.

One of the best ways to see the many birds that abide on Pine Island is to enjoy a little hike:   I recommend the one mile trail at Randell Research Archeological Center, 40 acres on Pineland Road that offers and interpretative trail on how the Calusa Indians lived here.

Another nice walk is the St. Jude trail on Stabile Road in Saint James City, which leads on a path through mangroves to a dock and benches overlooking a little cove, from which you can fish or just bird watch.

Little Pine Island has miles of trails and great birding, especially good for catching sight of hawks and bald eagles.  It is roughly half way between Matlacha and Pine Island Center, on the north side of Pine Island Road.

Pine Island Flatwoods Preserve is more than 500 acres on the west side of Stringfellow Road in Saint James City, with walking trails through-out.  The parking and entry point is across the street from Tropical Point Road in Saint James City, before you get to the KOA.  If you pass the KOA, you've gone too far.

Another fine way to enjoy the birds that live on Pine Island is to bike on the bike path that runs the length of the island.  In one recent bike ride, I saw more than a dozen species of birds, including king fisher, spoonbill, osprey, night heron, red shouldered hawk, cardinal, ibis, egret, white and brown pelicans, woodpeckers, grey blue heron and little blue heron. 

Tomorrow, I'll get back to my real estate reporting, and recapitulate the year of 2012 for real estate sales on Pine Island.