Great white pelicans glowed salmon pink in the parallel rays of the setting sun, while our pontoon boat swept a quiet arc around the tiny islet born of spoil dredged to create part of the Intracoastal Waterway. Captain Marian E. Schneider, founder and president of Grande Tours, based in Placida, in Southwest Florida, was at the helm, beaming like a little girl when her father first took her out on the waters of her native Florida, years before. She'd seen the great white birds with the black-fringed wing feathers many times, but, hey, this was a sight that most definitely did not dull with age.

I was banging away with two cameras – one chromes, the other prints – in that luscious light at the end of an uncommonly bright day, just before it dies to a dull grey.

"He's got the fever," Captain Marian said to the handful of other guests as she guided the boat just far enough out so as not to spook the birds. "Happens every time."

There was a ripple of laughter at my expense, of minor impact, for I was too busy trying desperately to record the wonder of this time/space vector in its continuously altering variants. Captain Marian is one of those people who paints on a large canvas, but with great attention to detail. She has a wonderful array of programs for individuals, couples, families and kids, most water-based, all with elements of adventure, education and pure fun. Her fishing programs include trips for kids as young as three, who get a certificate and a photo of their catches, "for bragging rights." Families can also join "Red Beard and the Pirates of Placida" for a treasure hunt on a small island.

Southwest Florida is a unique section of this unique state. This region is characterized by vast stretches of wildlands, still largely untouched. The area is ripe with evidence of the native peoples who populated the area before the European incursion, including countless examples of temple mounds. Finally, it is a repository of old southern charm, evidenced in a good deal of the architecture, before the cookie-cutter modernization that is transforming so much of the rest of Florida, and indeed the U.S. in general.

Scores of white pelicans, and other birds on the spoil island in Gasparilla Bay

At the Mote Marine Laboratory, scientists were working to save an infant pigmy sperm whale they'd named Amy, which had beached itself a few weeks earlier. The process involved endless hours in a pool with the baby whale, with volunteers keeping it interested, in motion and well fed; all with an eye toward its eventual release back into the sea. Visitors can tour the workings of the Lab, and an aquarium whose exhibits take you through the progression of habitats from those closest to shore to those in the deep. Touch tanks are popular with kids who marvel at the feel of a stingray. The aquarium also organizes ecotours of the nearby waterways.

At Leffis Key on Anna Maria Island, I met up with Karen A. Fraley, for the Coquina Baywalk. Fraley is an accomplished naturalist with an intimate knowledge of the area's history, both natural and anthropological. She explained how the earth we now walked was a spoil site where dredging was deposited. However, the site had been restored to its natural elevations, non-native plants removed, native plants reintroduced and lagoons created to mirror what once was. Among the plants now thriving here were the three types of mangroves – red, white and black – their ability to live in the saline environment along the shore important in "island building," and in supporting habitat critical to health of the entire marine ecosystem. The area is a great attractor to birdlife, including some rare sightings, such as the striped-headed tanager. Among other things, Fraley leads groups of kids for snorkeling trips in the surrounding waters where you are apt to see anything from tiny pipefish – a kind of straight-bodied version of a seahorse – to the Florida manatee, munching sea grass along the edges of a lagoon.

…if animals won't feed, nest or roost in the invasive vegetation, it might as well be asphalt…

Anyone who knows Charlie Hunsicker will tell you, right off, that he is a passionate person. As eco-systems administrator for Manatee County, Hunsicker has his work cut out for him, but he is a man who revels in challenges. One of his great passions is the original settlers in the area, temple mound builders, who thrived here between 300 and 1500 A.D. Hunsicker is working hard to save as much of the evidence of this pre-European civilization as he can. Walking among the hump-backed religious mounds at Emerson Point, he weaves his stories of how these Indians lived with the natural environment, how seashells layered in the soil record their existence. He stoops along a trail, picks up a periwinkle shell, pointing out the "kill hole," where an Indian had disabled the creature's muscle to get at the meat. Along the shore, he picks up shards of ancient pottery to further demonstrate the presence of ancient peoples.

His other great passion is returning the original ecology of the wildlands in his charge and that means eliminating invasive, alien plant life, like Australian pine and Brazilian pepper. The former was introduced as windbreaks, the latter a decorative plant. Both reproduced unabated, destroying local flora and fauna in the process. From an observation tower, high above the landscape, Hunsicker pointed out where he and his helpers were eliminating groves of the out- of-control pine trees.

"They don't support any of the local wildlife," he said. "And, if animals won't feed, nest or roost in the invasive vegetation, it might as well be asphalt."

The Gamble Mansion in Ellenton is the only antebellum plantation house in southwest Florida. Restored from near ruin in the first half of the 20th century by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the house is a fascinating look at the home of Major Robert Gamble, who struggled to make a go of it as a sugar magnate during the years just prior to the Civil War. Construction is tabby, a primitive but effective technique utilizing crushed oyster shells, sand and water. Period furniture and furnishings decorate the living quarters. The more austere kitchen provides a glimpse of how servants went about their daily chores. Alongside the mansion, a large cistern catching rain provided the water supply.

During the war, the mansion served as a hiding place for Judah P. Benjamin, the Confederacy's secretary of war, just long enough for him to make his escape to England, where he became a very successful attorney.

Phil Buri, the president of Walk on the Wild Side, picked me up before dawn, driving a muscular SUV, trailing a rig with a selection of canoes and kayaks. "This is a good time to get going," he said, offering his hand. "The birds will be out. Some groups have me come by well past the peak viewing time."

The birds were out, all right: turkey vultures atop the cab and along the sides of a pick up truck, parked at the put-in spot along the Myakka River. We'd made a few brief stops before getting to the put-in, one along a braided section of the river where swarms of egrets, herons and ibises were feasting in the shallow water, just the depth they like it to make the fishing easy pickings. Then we climbed to a canopy walk through the treetops, and up to an observation tower where the green panoply stretched as far as the eye could see in all compass points. It was a revelation to see so vast an area of green in a state that seemed bent on turning itself into an endless afghan of gated communities, strip malls and golf courses.

Gator glides through pond on Babcock Crescent B Ranch

Phil and his wife, Lana, had invited Kelly Yatcko, of the Sarasota Convention & Visitors Bureau and me for a lazy canoe/kayak tour of this quiet river, so laden with wildlife. Kelly and I chose a two-seater canoe, so I could alternate pulling my oar with shooting, which worked out fine because the Myakka was an easy flow past banks where great blue herons fed, wood storks stiff-legged about, roseate spoonbills seemed to grow pinker in the morning light. A flock of white ibises swooped in for a landing. Along sandier shores, black-necked stilts raced about. On a small island, two sandhill cranes craned their necks and honked at us. Gators sunned everywhere or slithered into the water at our approach. A red shouldered hawk sat vigilant on a dead limb. A flock of blue-winged teal soared overhead. Mammals made stealthy appearances: white-tailed deer, raccoon, even the occasional otter. By the lunch-break, at a riverside restaurant, I was almost dizzy from shooting.

The next morning, I met up with Bobbi Rodgers, environmental resources manager for the brand new Charlotte Harbor Environmental Center at Cedar Point Park, the only remaining sizeable tract of undisturbed land on Lemon Bay. We did a short walking tour of these flatlands, home to a wide assortment of birds: kingfishers, cardinals, towees, nutcatchers, wrens, and two nesting sites for bald eagles. We got a glimpse of one, a huge nest that had obviously been occupied for some time. Along the trail we passed fields of saw palmetto, copses of pine, and beautifully delicate wildflowers, including terrestrial orchids. There were the large mounds of endangered gopher tortoises, including one near a prickly pear cactus, which, the tortoises eat. At the shoreline, Rodgers pointed out a strand where more than 100 pelicans were roosting.

"People go out on the bay to catch the big one, swim, boat, all kinds of recreational activities," she said, "but they often don't seem to recognize that things live here. That's why we concentrate on teaching the kids, because they, in turn, teach their parents."

Among the more fascinating private reserves in this part of Florida is the Babcock Crescent B Ranch, sprawling across 90,000 acres of Charlotte and Lee Counties and including the wildlife rich Telegraph Cypress Swamp. Some 156, 000 acres of land here, was purchased by the Babcock family at the turn of the last century for its timber, mostly longleaf pine and cypress. The family transferred 65,000 acres to the state in the 1940s, which is now a massive wildlife management area. Today the property is a working ranch with thousands of head of cattle, even a small herd of bison. The ranch's ecotour company, Babcock Wilderness Adventures, offers programs that include experiencing both the ranching operation and the wild areas. You can walk, bike or swamp buggy your way about the property.

I took a tour by van with Steve Tutko, a biologist who serves as tour director, getting out every now and then for a closer look at the grounds – open prairie, flatwoods covered in pine and saw palmetto and, of course, the cypress swamp. There were the mounds of gopher tortoises, birds of every stripe including a group of Osceola turkeys scurrying off in front of us. On a bridge across the black waters of an hourglass-shaped lake, huge alligators cruised about.

"They shot a good deal of the movie, ‘Just Cause,' here, starring Sean Connery and Laurence Fishburn," Tutko told me, pointing to a spot in the marsh where a murder victim was found. It was an ideal place for such a shivery movie. The big gators circled closer. We climbed back into the van and motored off.

Canoeing Shell Creek with Clark Keller of Shell Creek Lodge, in the midst of a hot afternoon reminded me of those sultry settings in so many movies about the south. Live and laurel oaks, hung with Spanish moss, their magnificent designs reflected in water so black, so perfectly still, the hairline ripple of our bow cutting the water was the only disturbance. This was hardwood riverine forest in a floodplain, cypress a bit higher up the banks. The occasional rustic residence dotted the higher banks. The wildlife is pretty quiet this time of day – an occasional basking turtle, here and there – but the serenity of the experience was its attraction. By the time we had made our way to the creek's estuary, everything had changed, the vegetation thick as a wire brush on tiny islets, wading birds everywhere.

This lazy afternoon was my final one in Southwest Florida. It was both relaxing yet fraught with a sense of adventure should I decide to pursue that, an odd anomaly but somehow descriptive of my whole experience here. A smile crept across my face. I slipped both hands behind my neck, slid down in my seat and let the river spirit me along.