The Living Gulf Coast: A Nature Guide to Southwest Florida - Softcover

Charles Sobczak

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0982967470 ISBN 13: 9780982967478

Publisher: Indigo Press L.L.C., 2011

Synopsis

The Living Gulf Coast is the first comprehensive nature guide to Florida's Southwest region. The book covers six counties: Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee, Collier, Glades and Hendry. There are more than 160 parks, preserves and eco-destinations covered in this work, with sixty-one of them described in great detail. Not only does the book describe these outstanding destinations, it also covers all the major birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians found throughout the region. The bird section includes 291 species with 120 of the most commonly encountered birds covered in exacting detail. It also includes all the major mammals and eighty-eight snakes, lizards, turtles and crocodilans found in the unique ecosystems of Southwest Florida. With more than 600 full-color photographs of wildlife, campgrounds, rivers and parks this is an essential tool for exploring everywhere from the Florida Everglades to the aquarium at Mote Marine. This book is an absolute must have for any nature lover, birder, biker, hiker, kayaker, canoeist or naturalist planning to visit Southwest Florida.

About this title

About the Author:

Charles Sobczak lives and writes on Sanibel Island, Florida. His most recent release, Living Sanibel - A Nature Guide to Sanibel & Captiva Islands, has become one of the best-selling books on Sanibel and Captiva. His first novel, Six Mornings on Sanibel, is currently in its sixth printing and his other works, A Choice of Angels, Alligators, Sharks & Panthers as well as Chain of Fools continue to garner an ever-widening audience.

Review:

The Living Gulf Coast provides inspiration to get outdoors and celebrate nature's treasures. Residents and visitors to Florida will find this an essential field guide to best appreciate and understand our living landscape with its unique biodiversity. --Dr. Meg Lowman, author of Life in the Treetops (Yale University Press); designer of Myakka River State Park canopy walkway, Myakka, FL

Charles Sobczak's The Living Gulf Coast is a wonderful resource to enjoying the nature of Southwest Florida. Whether you are a newcomer or have visited or lived here for years, you will discover special natural places that you never knew about all outlined in this guide. We recommend it to all nature lovers. --Don and Lillian Stokes, Authors of The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America (Hachette Books)

Charles Sobczak has captured all the reasons we cherish our natural treasures in Southwest Florida our unique waters, land and wildlife. The book inspires us to protect our paradise for generations to come. --Andrew McElwaine, President, Conservancy of Southwest Florida

A DELIGHTFUL INVENTORY OF THE GULF COAST'S NATURAL DELIGHTS! People who live in and visit Southwest Florida are drawn by its natural beauty. In spite of many decades of development, the region still has a remarkable diversity of life forms and relatively unspoiled habitats in which they thrive. Furhtermore, public and private efforts have done much to ensure the future of these natural treasures. The Living Gulf Coast, is a generous, lavishly produced and inspiring guide to this distinctive paradise. Mr. Sobczak's encyclopedic effort is divided into two major sections of approximately equal size. The first section is the field guide itself. Defining the region as including Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee, Collier, Glades and Hendry counties, the author provides detailed information on the birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians to be found here. He employs an efficient set of symbols and abbreviations to map basic facts of size (for birds, length, wingspan and weight), degree of endangerment, where found, the vaious names applied to the speices and so forth. He also provides vivid descriptions of each creature's appearance, behavior, habitat and diet. Blending information and entertainment, he entices his readers to move beyond the passive engagement of entering a book. He urges them to engage directly and actively with their fellow creatures. Whether introducing the green iguana, the Everglades mink, the pileated woodpecker, the Florida banded snake or the lowly nutria, he gives each critter its due. Often, his discussions are leavened by humor and wit. Where to engage? That's what the second half of the book is all about. Nature lovers will revel in Mr. Sobczak's survey of managed lands- available for public exploration and enjoyment in this six-county region. More than 2,000 of the region's 6,000 square miles are under federal, state or local public or private management, providing countless opportunities for birding, hiking, kayaking, camping and just plain meditation. The author provides information about 162 destinations, 61 in elaborate detail and the others in a more compact overview. This latter half of the book is arranged by county, with a north-to-south plan within each chapter. With Mr. Sobczak as our guide, we can travel from Sarasota's Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium to Punta Gorda's Peace River Wildlife Center to Boca Grande's Gasparilla State Park to the Naples Botanical Garden and to various eco-destinations out east in Hendry and Glades counties. Many of these destinations are well know, while others are relatively obscure. The auther locates each entry not only be address, but also by GPS coordinates. You won't get lost. One glory of The Living Gulf Coast is the author's thouroughness and enthusiasm. Anot --Gorden Campbell, Photographer/Naturalist, The Naples Daily News July 20, 2011

Indigo Press is pleased to announce that it s recent release, The Living Gulf Coast-A Nature Guide to Southwest Florida (March 2011), is the gold-medal winner (the President s Award for Florida adult non-fiction) at the annual awards ceremony of the Florida Publisher s Association (FPA). The event took place the evening of November 5, 2011 at the Helmsely Sandcastle Hotel on Lido Beach in Sarasota, Florida. The competition for this prestigious award was exceptionally high this year because, for the first time in the FPA s twenty-eight year history, the numerous categories were open to all Florida publishers. The judging was done by an independent panel of three Florida librarians who scored every entry on a number of criteria including content, cover and interior book design. The Living Gulf Coast is a nature guide covering six counties of Southwest Florida, including Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee, Collier, Glades and Hendry. The book includes 291 birds, all the living mammals and more than 90 species of reptiles and amphibians found in this region. The second half of the book describes 162 parks, preserves and eco-destinations located within these six counties. The book is 512 pages and contains more than 600 full-color photograph from award-winning nature photographers Alan S. Maltz, Dick Fortune, Sara Lopez, Judd Patterson, David Seibel and Heather Green. --Florida Publisher's Association

Excerpt from: BIRDS of FLORIDA, WHITE PELICAN ...Birds of Florida has been lots of fun to produce anad has resulted in some great feedback. Since nature photography rans as one of the top photographic categories, I'd like to recommend two books centered on the topic right here in Southwest Florida. Each is an impeccably researched and very useful gide book detailing hundreds of top locations in Southwest Florida with helpful & ins and outs for each. The are he Living Gulf Coast, and Living Sanibel, by Charles Sobczak of Sanibel, who I met at a speaking engagement on Earth Day. If you're more adventure oriented and would like to read about 26 true attacks by beasts like alligators and sharks he has just the book for you too (Alligators, Sharks & Panthers: Deadly Encounters with Florida's Top Predator - Man, Indigo Press, 2007). Take a look at his books, they're the kind you can leave on the coffee table or right in the car as you're out exploring. --Gorden Campbell, Photographer/Naturalist, The Naples Daily News July 20, 2011

About this edition

• Publisher: Indigo Press L.L.C.
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0982967470
• ISBN 13: 9780982967478
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 512
• Editor: N/a
• Illustrator: Sara Lopez, Dick Fortune, Alan Maltz, Heather Green, Judd Patterson, Bob Gress, David Siebel, Kenneth Krysko, R.J. Wiley