The sky Terns Black

The Sanibel sky turned black with rain clouds and turned white SANDWICH TERNS soaring by. The sky was such a beautiful back drop for them.

Terns in the black sky Sanibel

There were ROYAL TERNS and LAUGHING GULLS joining in on the fun too.

Sanibel lighthouse with birds

We didn’t stay on the beach long since that sky looked a little frightful and we weren’t seeing loads of shells other than this cute little LACE MUREX (or lacie), a few WENTLETRAPS and minis.

Lace Murex on Sanibel beach

Up high on the beach was a wide wrack line of what I call “beach bling”. Yes, I made up the phrase! Here’s my definition…. Beach Bling: noun– (beech-bling) 1. anything that washes up on the beach other than seashells. 2. Collectable and/or noncollectable debris washed up on any shore.

Sanibel Beach Bling

Doesn’t “Beach Bling” even make PARCHMENT WORMS sound better?

Parchment worms

More Beach Bling in the wrack line like BLACK MANGROVE SEEDS which are the little split green lima bean looking things in this next photo…

Black Mangrove seeds

…and the RED MANGROVE SEED PODS mixed in…

Parchment worms, red mangrove seed pods, mangrove seeds

This baby BLUE CRAB shell would fall into this category too…

young yellow blue crab

 But still the best thing to watch was the beautiful birds soaring and swirling in the stormy sky. They definitely stole the show

Sanibel stormy sky with gulls

sandwich terns Sanibel lighthouse