About Suncoast Birding
Plain-English birding guides for Sarasota and Manatee counties, made by Jason Jacobs (The Curious Outdoors), a Sarasota wildlife and bird photographer.
How we source facts
Every hours, fee, parking, and bird detail comes from an official or expert source: Florida State Parks, Sarasota and Manatee County parks, Sarasota, Venice, and Manatee Audubon societies, the Great Florida Birding & Wildlife Trail, and eBird. Each guide links its sources and shows the date we last checked them. Spot a mistake? Tell us and we'll fix it.
How "go or skip" works
For each spot we pull the free Open-Meteo hourly forecast at the spot's coordinates and look at the next 3 daylight hours (after dark, tomorrow's first 3 hours after sunrise).
- Skip: thunderstorms (WMO code 95 or higher), rain chance of 70% or more, feels-like 103°F or higher, or gusts of 35 mph or more (30 at beaches).
- Maybe: rain chance of 40 to 69%, feels-like 95 to 102°F, gusts of 22 mph or more (20 at beaches), or feels-like 45°F or lower.
- Go: everything else.
It's a weather check only. It doesn't know about closures, floods, or what the birds are doing, so check the park's alerts and eBird too.
Sponsor or partner
We keep a small number of clearly labeled sponsor spots on each guide for local guides, optics and outdoor shops, and conservation groups. No sponsor has signed yet, so every sponsor spot on the site is currently open. Sponsors never change what a guide says about a place.
Contact: placeholder. Add a sponsor email once the domain is live.