Archive for Baby’s Ear
Turkey Wings and Rice, a Cone and Candy
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Don’t get your taste buds all worked up about TURKEY, RICE or CANDY because I’m talking seashells, of course! We found lots of mini “morsels” at the lighthouse over the weekend including these two TURKEY WINGS (the biggest one is only about an inch long) and two TAMPA TURRIDS in the photo above and RICE OLIVES and BABY’S EARS in this next photo.
Along with the usual ANGULATE WENTLETRAPS, I found a BROWN BANDED WENTLETRAP too….
…. And some AUGERS and little FIGHTING CONCHS.
And to top it all off with some sweet candy, we found two HORSE CONCHS and baby ALPHABET CONE.
I met William and Melissa (Jacksonville, FL) filling their shells bags with SCALLOP shells, CONCHS and some MUREXES.
I found out this was their first trip to Sanibel so I showed them how to find WENTLETRAPS too..
I met another Shelling Sister Sanibel Stooper on the beach too…. this little cutie Lucy! She was having a ball with this COCKLE shell on the beach with her parents Jeff and Tammy.
And look what I found again…. a SMOOTH DUCK CLAM. Maybe it isn’t that unusual (?)
Unfortunately, it’s so thin and fragile, it broke when I got it back to the house……oops!
There were so many SAILOR’S EARS, I bunched a few together and that’s when I saw the SMOOTH DUCK CLAM too.
Sailors ears
Just a reminder- If you haven’t entered the Susick Sea Shell Sifter Giveaway yet, CLICK HERE to win!
The Rewards Of Social Shelling
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Is there anything cuter than little kids collecting shells on the beach? Little Bella from Ocala was the first person I saw when I got to the lighthouse beach yesterday evening so I knew it would be a fun night. And it was…. because then I met newlyweds Bryn and Nathaniel who love to shell together so much that Nathaniel proposed to Bryn with a JUNONIA shell! Now that’s love! Congratulations to you!
Then I found out that she was the daughter of Robin from my post back in April Smiles For Seashells . She was there too and found a really nice size BABY’S EAR. I love that happy smile!
Robin’s close- up BABY’S EAR…..
Then Robin told us where the real action was. In the water. Sheri from Texas found a shellovely LIGHTNING WHELK by sittin-n-siftin in the shallows at the tip of the lighthouse beach.
This Texan gal found her state shell! You see she was prepared with her trusty garden claw for digging.
We dug around out in the water too and found all but the TULIP in the Sanibel Six ( the OLIVE didn’t make it in the photo).
So in the midst of our socializing, Clark and I were WENTLTRAP-ing and found a little DUSKY CONE along with a little candy and lots of good WENTLETRAPS.
Instead of the sky being black with rain clouds last night, there was a beautiful, colorful swirling sky right over the lighthouse…. magical.
PS- I’m trying to get into the “cool” blogger club (not really such a thing… or is there? Like Groucho Marx said “I don’t want to be a member of a club that would have me as a member” heehee) so I’ve added a few social buttons below each post to finally get into the internet world of 2011. You can now “Like” a post for Facebook, tweet this post if you have Twitter, if you have a google account (gmail) you can hit the +1 (Google’s answer to the ”Like” button) or you can submit it to StumbleUpon. I would be grateful if you clicked any of them! We can be the cool kids together… wait, we already are- nothing gets cooler than the hanging out at the beach!
14 Inch Clean Horse Conch
Posted by: | CommentsAs you know, I couldn’t wait to post Clark’s 14″ HORSE CONCH (and the video) he found on Saturday. That’ll go down in the ol’ memory vault. What a find! WooHoo! Oh, What’s that you said? You want to see the pictures of the HORSE CONCH all cleaned up? Oh alright, if you insist…..
14 inch horse conch
Pretty, huh? Clark soaked it in a weak bleach solution for a couple of days to get the barnacles softened up to be able to pop them off. It worked! All I had to do it run a metal dental pick over all the crud and it all came right off.
I love the little curve of the tail (anterior) of “him”. I know you are thinking it still doesn’t look all that clean but for some reason I like the brown parts just like they are. I don’t like it to be scrubbed off so that’s why Clark didn’t put too much bleach with the water for soaking. After time, all of that brown part will flake off so at least I will enjoy it until nature takes it’s course.
Here’s a photo taken on the beach with the rest of our finds. We didn’t find a huge quantity of shells but the quality was fab-ul-o-so.
Here’s a better look at the LIGHTNING WHELK Clark found too. Okay, he found the SUNRAY VENUS, KINGS CROWNS and the WHELKS but I found the SAND DOLLARS. I was on a mission to find those SAND DOLLARS so that’s all I was focused on (it’s sounding like an excuse, isn’t it?).
Oh wait! I did find some other cuties too…. WORMIES! And a BABY’S EAR. Clark was in a zone, man, he found this WHITE ROSE PETAL TELLIN too. Geez.
Clark thanks you for all of your fun comments on his big find. He might not comment back but he truly gets a kick out of it (as I do every day!!!). xo
2 Ibis fly over North Captiva
Phooners Found at Sanibel Lighthouse
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You probably do the Stoop while you are on Sanibel…. but do you Phoon? This was my first experience with phooning so I got a real kick out of it (no pun intended 
). Definition: To Phoon is to do a pose in a “running man” position. Phooning is accepted anywhere and wherever there is a camera.
Meet the phooners…. Laurie (IL), Kim (IL), Chablis (IL), Wendy (CO) and Katy (CO)
Kim is a phooning expert, has a blog called Snug Harbor Bay where she talks about her neck of the woods, does geocaching (she had to explain that to me too) and of course…she’s a sheller. She is an interesting busy, busy bee!
Chablis was the lucky phooner who found the nice BABY’S EAR and after looking at this TULIP SHELL EGG CASING, we decided to put it back in the water since it was still very hydrated and the sacs looked like they were about ready to pop out. We’re keeping our fingers crossed they survive.
Tulip Egg Casing
Clark and I took a walk together later on in the day further west of the lighthouse near Seaside Inn and I found a BABY’S EAR too!
I spotted another MARGINELLA! Now that now that I have them on my radar, I’ve found a few more.
Marginella on the left
Clark picked up an EGG COCKLE since we haven’t seen those in a while either.
Egg Cockle shell
This is the first SEA BEAN I’ve seen in a while too….
sea bean in the sea weed
That’s what we do when we can’t find the SANIBEL SIX, we sift through the sea debris and look for “oddities” that we don’t normally see. Wait! Hold on! I didn’t mean Phooning was an oddity! It’s not an oddity…… it’s a photo-optity.
I’m Tellin’ On Some Tellins
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White Crested Tellin
The island seashell telegraph was buzzing yesterday with the news that a rare WHITE CRESTED TELLIN was found by our shelling friend Nancy (see her on post Seashell In My Pocket) while she was shelling the out islands with her husband Dayton and their best friends Gary and Sandy. Look at the cool serrated edges on this shell- those aren’t chips. This photo only shows the one side of the shell…the other side is attached as well! They took it to the shop Sanibel Seashell Industries and he said it was a rare find.
Rose Petal Tellins
Gary found all of these ROSE PETAL TELLINS out on the out islands too. They got out there by hiring shelling guide Brian Holaway to take them out near North Captiva and Cayo Costa.
Yellow Alternate Tellin
I think it’s the prettiest yellow ALTERNATE TELLIN I’ve ever seen. Guess who found this. Nancy! She was a hawk eye out on those flats. This shell looks similar to a COQUINA in this picture but it’s about an inch bigger.
Alternate Tellins
These are the color that these TELLINS normally are. Nice… but can’t really compare to that yellow!
Nancy's Scotch Bonnet
Brian surely did not disappoint this crowd. Nancy found this SCOTCH BONNET too!! This was her first time she has found a SCOTCH BONNET and she said Brian seemed just as excited as she was.
Morton's Egg Cockle
They all found MORTON’S EGG COCKLES which are another shell crafter favorite since the inside is such a bright yellow. I forget the variety, but to me, they look like orchid petals. Please help me if you know what orchid I’m thinking of.
Purplish Tagelus
The shelling continued with PURPLISH TAGELUS shells.
Sandy's wentletrap
Sandy found this super big WENTLETRAP and lots of BABY’S EARS. You wouldn’t believe the bags and bags of goodies the whole gang brought back.
Bags of shells
They all could not get over how much fun they had and how many shells they found with Brian as their guide ( click HERE for info on Brian). Congrats to you all and thanks for sharing your goodies.
Gary, Sandy, Nancy and Dayton (MN) from October
Shelling Here and There
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Nassa (Bruised Nassa)
I’ve been so obsessed with the Sanibel’s Middle Gulf Rd beaches and Captiva lately, that I’ve neglected my old time fave beach… the Lighthouse. Thats’s where I found this mini half inch beauty the BRUISED NASSA. I updated this a few hours after I wrote this original post in which I misidentified this shell as a WHITE NASSA. Thank you to Bird and MurexKen for your keen eyes!
Bruised Nassa aperture
I also found shelling sistah and blogger Kaybe from The Essential Beachcomber (click on that link to see her “You might be a shell addict if you…”) finding WENTLETRAPS and BABY’S EARS.
Beachcomber Kaybe (Englewood, FL)
Kaybe’s minis….
And I found more beach art. Another mermaid! This is for you Anna N…
I did take a couple of photos of Captiva’s Blind Pass on Monday and the beach and sand bar, of course, have changed. Not many shells on the left side of the jetty but the right side of the jetty had a little pile building.
Sand bar beach left side of jetty
This next picture shows a little pile of shells that was building up and look who was there working the pile …. Teresa from my January 2 post. She had found a couple of FLATS and a CONE. Look at that fog!
Right side of jetty on Captiva
The picture of the day that made me smile from ear to ear for probably an hour after I saw it on the iLoveShelling FaceBook page….Thank you Mary Ann!!! You made me speechless.
