Archive for Angel Wing
Cockles, Conchs and Quahogs
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After several weeks of east winds, the west winds have finally arrived to drive some shells on to our beaches. Today was only the first day of the westies but since it was a really low tide this morning, I figured I’d find some goodies. It’s always a good day when you find an ALPHABET CONE and you’ve got to see just how darn cute this little juvie HORSE CONCH is…
I couldn’t believe I found this ANGEL WING sitting in the high wrack line…
I love when I find shells like this BANDED TULIP lying on the beach like this.
Tonya, Beth and Max from Ohio had their bags filled with all sorts of treasures.
Wanna look in their shell bags? I sure wanted to too! COCKLES and CONCHS and CLAMS…
Max found this live LIGHTNING WHELK in the high tide wrack line so he walked it down to the water and gently put it in the water. Good for you Max! You helped save this beauty.
I found local Sanibel sheller Lynn walking her very happy standard poodle Alexander with a pocket full of seashell treasure too.
Look at those pretty those COLORFUL MOON shells along with those candies and a mini TURE TULIP.
There was all sorts of bivalves scattered along the beach. I found this ATLANTIC COCKLE, PONDEROUS ARK and SOUTHERN QUAHOG together on the beach just like this…
This is the biggest DARK CERITH I’ve ever found. It’s one and a half inches long!
I was pretty pleased with what we all were finding on the beach near Donax Street today after the first day of west winds. Tomorrow might be even better!
Beautiful Buried Treasures
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Gabriel found this live STARFISH (BROWN SPINY SEA STAR) on a PEN SHELL at low tide late this morning at the Sanibel Lighthouse beach. His whole family came over to look at it and to ohhh and ahhh so I had to find out what the fuss was about. It’s just beautiful, isn’t it? Yes, I mean the STARFISH is beautiful but also to hear the excitement and amazement of finding life and treasures that come from the sea. That’s beautiful too.
Gabriel, Danielle, Peggy, Paul and Mark
It was such a pleasure to meet this family! They were trying to learn the names of all the shells they were finding so I was thrilled to help them. This was our best find…. an ALPHABET CONE that was semi buried in the sand.
I don’t have photos of all the shells we were finding but here are some of the shell they found that I help identify…
Oh how I’ve missed my walks at the lighthouse beach on Sanibel. Ever since the day light savings time change, I’ve been discombobulated. I like my walks with Clark in the evening but now it gets dark too early for me to wait until he gets home from his office. But now after meeting such an amazing family on the beach today, it got me right in my beach combing time zone again. Here are a couple of my finds….
Most of my finds today were half buried in the sand like this half buried perfect ANGEL WING.
This LIGHTNING WHELK was perfectly empty too but I almost missed it since only this much of it was showing. More buried treasure.
This morning started off my weekend with a smile so I hope I can pass it along to you too. Have a great weekend!
A Golden Day Boating Around Marco
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Our friends John and Jane strapped a Zodiac dinghy to the top of their car on Saturday and invited us to join them for a boating adventure down to Marco Island. Yes! We are always ready for a shelling expedition.
The whole day was golden…
Literally! Both John and Clark found GOLDEN OLIVES!
When we all got back to the boat, everybody was showing off their best finds and both guys held out their hands holding the GOLDEN OLIVES…
Look at this huuujah ANGEL WING Clark found. It fills my whole hand…
This was the first ALPHABET CONE John found for the day.
These are Jane’s FLORIDA CONES. These are pretty golden too!
Here are the rest of her best finds. Yes! She found a JUNONIA! It’s broken on one side but it’s still a JUNONIA and it might be a good candidate for making a necklace. Congrats Jane!
We boated over to another island (Kice) where I was taking a photo of a nice 10 inch old crusty HORSE CONCH I found on the low tide sand bar…
I heard Clark yell and start waving his arms. Oh no, he di-ant! Another one? He couldn’t have found another you-know-what. I looked to see how far away he was since I was way out on the sand bar. See that little speck? That’s how far he was from me.
Okay,..you might want to avert your eyes if you’ve had a bad day or just can’t stand the thought of Clark finding yet another J….. uh…. I can’t even say it. To show me where he found it, he had it sitting right where it was when he walked up. Here… see for yourself.
Really? How come I didn’t look there first? The man is a shell magnet. Here is a close up of his nearly perfect JUNONIA (just the tip is missing). I want to find one! Not that I’m jealous…. oh, geez. Of course I’m jealous! Oh I’m happy for Jane and “him” too…. I guess. 
It even has a golden color to it too!
You know I’m just kidding about being upset I didn’t find the big J. How could I when I found so many beautiful shells on such an awesome day? Here are some of our other golden treasures…like candy!
TOP SHELLS…
BRUISED NASSAS…
TAMPA TURRIDS…
DUSKY CONES…
and even a cool BRYOZOAN COLONY…
It took us less than 1 1/2 hours drive time to get to our island hopping adventure in Marco aboard “our” little dinghy. Here’s the happy crew…
PS- I popped off some of those crusty barnacles to uncover the shell of that HORSE CONCH I found out the sand bar. It’s beautiful! I found a home for it on my outside steps as a happy welcome to our Shell Shack.
This Weekend Rocked
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My friend Diane joined Clark and me on the beach off West Gulf Drive yesterday for a lovely afternoon of shell seeking. We wanted to find a big WHELK like last week but she was just as happy with a candy HORSIE CONCH.
She was even happier to find 9 BABY’S EARS…
Then to top it all off she framed her Sanibel Six in a very creative MANGROVE SEED POD picture frame.
I met another blog buddy Candice from St Pete! She saw Clark with his shelling backhoe and asked him “Are you Clark?” LOL
She said she wasn’t finding much, so I walked with her just for a few minutes and we found a few goodies… 3 ALTERNATE TELLINS, a PURPLISH TAGELUS, COQUINA, FALSE ANGEL WING, 2 CONCHS, a LACE MUREX, a TURBAN and a beautiful BABY’S EAR.
All of Candice’s shells were found on the high and dry wrack line on the far right of this next picture. On the sand bars, there were hundreds of FIGHTING CONCHS and a few bigger shells…
Aha! That’s where the big WHELK was that we were looking for. Jennifer (Sanibel) had already found that prize AND three ALPHIES!
Nice finds, Jennifer!
Clark didn’t find another big WHELK but he did find a huuu-jahh piece of WORM ROCK. He knows this is another fave of mine. It doesn’t look like anything fabulous in this photo but trust me, it’s cool. This is a rock formed by a colony of VARIABLE WORM SNAILS (not exactly the same thing as my “wormie shells” we find) and it’s not every day for us to find it this big.
Look at it close up…
Rock on and have a happy Monday!
I Heart Sanibel and Captiva
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Don’t you just love to come across something written in the sand with shells? Me too! Especially when it’s something like this…so sweet with that little heart. We found this beach art at Blind Pass last night along with lots of goodies to remind me why I heart Sanibel too….. and Captiva.
The waves were still really choppy in the Gulf so Clark and I checked out Blind Pass yesterday late afternoon and started on the Captiva side to look for shells by the jetty. Not many shells were on the beach yet but this perfect ANGEL WING was just laying on the beach exactly like this…
We took that as a good sign so we brought out the big guns and started scooping with the larger shelling backhoes in the surf. Oh yaya! We started finding oodles of OLIVES and juvie FIGHTING CONCHS. This was in one of the first piles of scooped shells…
The MANGROVE SEED PODS were coming in along with the shells…
One little SEA URCHIN…
A Horsie! (I just noticed I have a habit of putting an “ie” on the things I think are really cute. LOL It’s like when you talk about your kitties or puppies- you get “that” voice and everything is so cute )
Just like these two “cutie” sisters Jessica and Allysa from Sarasota who were having a great time filling up their shell bags. They both knew most of the names of their shells- such smart girls!
We walked back over to the Sanibel side and guess who we found! Local sheller Donnie (no really, his name already had the “ie” on it, I didn’t give him that pet name- LOL) who I mentioned in my post The Elite Threewhen his daughter found a JUNONIA and a SCOTCH BONNET in the same week.
He gives most of his shell finds away but he did have a few keepers in his shell bag. Oh, and check out his fancy shelling shoes… they have toes!
While we were on the Captiva side I took a video of Clark doing sort of a How-To on using the shelling backhoe but it is taking sooooo long to download. I’ll try to post it tomorrow. Until then, have a great weekend!
UPDATE: September 10, 2011- You can see the video of this day by clicking HERE.
Angels On The Gulf Coast
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Angel wing shells by Dovie Belmont
ANGEL WING shells are very special. If you’ve ever found one, then you know what I mean. They are pure white and so beautifully detailed to a degree that is astonishingly close to what we’ve imagined all our lives to be the wings of Angels. Yet they are so delicate we hardly ever see one completely intact.
False Angel wing pairs by Dovie Belmont
This is why I was blown away when not just one blog buddy found lots of ANGEL WINGS completely in tact… but three! And 2 out of the 3 found most of them still together! Can you believe that? Both sides!
False Angel wings sea shells by Dovie Belmont
Lucky Girl Dovie found all of these FALSE ANGEL WINGS at Salina’s Beach on the Pan Handle of Florida.
She said ”… these are the tiny Angel wings that we found all over the beach at Salinas Park…there are Angel wings, Campeche Angel wings, Fallen Angel wings, and False Angel wings. We had to be very careful because they are so fragile.”
Angel wing seashells and other beach treasures by Cheri
I saw this picture (above) from Cheri and knew you would enjoy this too. She found these two large Angel Wings on Sanibel but I don’t know what beach. I am so curious, please let us know. Look at all those other fantabulous seashells too!
Angel wing seashell dig found by MurexKen and MurexAlice
Okay, this is what topped the whole Angel Wing week. This picture (above) is what an Angel Wing around 7 inches long (maybe 8- I forgot to measure since I was so overwhelmed) looks like when it is dug out of the muck in the low tide flats on the bay side of Sanibel. It is still perfectly intact and filled with mud and sand since the mollusk wasn’t in there any more. This is CRRR-AAAAZY. Guess who found it. MurexKen and MurexAlice.
Angel wing shells found by MurexKen and MurexAlice
You see, that wasn’t the only one they found. If I remember correctly, they found around 30 whole ones still attached together filled with nothing but sand and silt from the bay side of Blind Pass at a low tide of minus .50 feet. They rented a canoe from Castaways and paddled to the sand bars that are rarely exposed.
Angel Wing shell pair
I know they are very experienced shellers and have found lots of amazing shells but I think this will be an unforgettable memory. Angel Wings are special shells and it’s like there was a shelling Angel spreading her wings all along the gulf coast.
Speaking of special, a friend shared this beautiful poem that explains in such lovely words how we feel. Especially after seeing so many wings of Angels today.
THOUGHTS FROM A SHELL COLLECTOR
I love a beach where seabirds cry, Where the shining water meets the sky. Where one can look for shells and things, And gather the gifts that each tide brings. I like to walk upon the sand, Between the ocean and the land. To breathe the wonderful salty air, And feel the breeze blow through my hair. I enjoy the pleasure these things bring, They calm my mind and make my heart sing. And even when I can’t be there, I always remember what the beach had to share. And if you happen to see a shell, I hope this thought you’ll remember well. As I have prized each beautiful treasure, So I value my family and friends in even greater measure. And when the times comes I’m no longer here, Do not think I have left you, never fear. Just picture me happy on some distant shore Picking up lovely things just as before. For I will not have died, nor will I sleep; I will see you again, so please do not weep, I’ll just continue happy in His peace and care Until the time comes when you join me there.-Betty Jean Piech
Cleaned Angel Wings by MurexKen
