Robinson Preserve – Bradenton, Florida6 min read time

With the increase in Covid 19 vaccinations the camera club I belong to in Tampa, Florida, decided it was time to have an in-person meet-up but outdoors. One of our members suggested Robinson Preserve in Bradenton so I …

decided to check it out before we committed to this place that we were unfamiliar with.

I decided to take my Nikon D850 with the bird lens, 200-500mm and my Nikon Z6 (converted to 590nm infrared) with my favorite 16-35mm wide-angle lens.

I arrived at Robinson Preserve around 8:30 AM on a Wednesday and the parking lot was pretty full. I found that there were many people here enjoying the early morning coolness that we were still getting in February.

Some were biking, some jogging and many just walking.

I grabbed a map and decided that in the time that I had I would check out the Observation Tower and follow the trail that led to and out from the tower. There are several trails, some are paved and some are crushed shell.

I did see a few birds along the trail.

But I soon realized that Robinson Preserve was more of a landscape kind of park and especially great for Infrared Photography!

I made my way to the Observation Tower and wow! what a view!

Upon making my way along the trail into the mangroves I found a number of bridges and boardwalks that take you over the waterways and coastal swamp.

These made for some interesting graphic images.

Along the trail there were a few spots were I could go through the mangroves and get the full view of the bay with the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

I was running short on time so I took a cut-off trail back over to the parking lot. I did see a number of Great Egrets along the way but by this time the lighting was not too great so those images were not good!

I did decide that this would be a great place for our club to visit and a great place to come back to with a kayak some day!

Here a few images from my visit in April 2021 with our Tampa Bay Camera Club members. There was a heavy fog over the bay so the Sunshine Skyway Bridge was not visible this time.

Robinson Preserve is definitely one of those parks that everyone should check out. I still need to get back down there to try the other trails that I did not have time to follow during my two visits and I really want to take my kayak on their kayaking trail when the weather is a bit cooler!

They have some wonderful screened-in pavilions for picnics. We used one for our camera club gathering! It was nice to sit in the shade and eat our lunch with no bugs bothering us!

For more info on Robinson Preserve please check out their website.

For larger versions of these images and more, either click any image or visit my Robinson Preserve Gallery.

That is all for now!

Lynn