It's that time of year again.  Sarasota is giving up a major portion of prime beach on North Lido for the exclusive use of visitors who do not even stay in our hotels or eat in our restaurants.  The state and county, in cooperation with local volunteers, are helping by staking out and closing off the beach for these visitors, terns, plovers and skimmers, to name a few.

The Audubon Society is seeking volunteers to help monitor nests, and to educate people on what they can do to help keep these nesting areas safe.  Two volunteers, Bonnie Samuelson and Ruth Ellen Peipert, were out last Saturday repairing and adjusting the stakes that protect the nesting birds.  "Each year we work in collaboration with the Fish and Wildlife Commission, Sarasota County and the local Audubon to establish a perimeter to protect the nests" Samuelson said. "There is no shade, and in the summer sun if the eggs are unprotected for even a short period of time, it can be deadly."

Read on more at the Herald Tribune.