Tour a hidden gem on a City Island trail

Winding through the mangroves on City Island is a hidden gem of a trail. Not only is the walk beautiful, but it also comes with narration. 

Go to the end of Ken Thompson Parkway; the entrance is next to the playground. It’s marked with a few signs and one tall pole, which provides a phone number for the Science and Environmental Council’s watershed audio tour, which started in 2009 with 15 stops through Sarasota and Manatee counties.

Stop 11 on Ken Thompson Parkway is now one of 40 stops that run from Lemon Bay in Venice up to Emerson Point Preserve in Palmetto. There are two other stops on City Island and one on Longboat Key. 

Stop 11 focuses on the preservation of estuaries, which act as nurseries for young animals. Healthy seagrass meadows and mangrove roots provide places to hide from predators.

Watersheds, the area of land where stormwater runs off into the surrounding bodies of water, affect water quality. The Sarasota Bay watershed is 161.4 square miles of urbanized land, making pollution a major concern. 

“Stormwater runoff from our yards, neighborhoods and businesses is the largest source of pollution to Sarasota Bay,” Sarasota Bay Estuary Program’s Darcy Young says on the recording. “Pollution degrades the habitats that bay wildlife depend on.”

The signage entering the trail warns of narrow corridors and low branches because it was “sensitively designed,” but the boardwalk is still easy to maneuver. And with more than 1,400 species of plants and animals calling the estuary home, wildlife can be spotted around every turn.

Upon entering the trail, fiddler crabs skitter across the boardwalk. When walking to the lookout deck, mullets are usually jumping. Before the trail ends, there’s a lagoon where needlefish and other varieties can be seen swimming in schools. And of course, seabirds will be perched everywhere in between. 

To access the audio tour, call 926-6813 or visit ScienceAndEnvironment.org/project/mobile-phone-tour.