Archive for Snowy Egret
Blind Pass Captiva Still Stirring Seashells
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That seashell pile on Captiva’s Blind Pass jetty rocks is the gift that keeps on giving. Suzanne (Ft Myers) found a tiny bright orange HORSE CONCH with that cute little white tip about the same time I found my “candy” too.
Get ready, cyber shellers! This is the shell pile I saw my little treasured “candy”. I was doing the Sit ‘N Sift in that big pile when I saw a little sliver of orange peeking through. Can you find it too? (Click the pic to enlarge. It’s a big file so it might take longer to download)
You got it!
Dave and Colleen (PA) were practically digging to China to strike buried treasure.
Eureka! They struck gold! He pulled out a golden HORSE CONCH and said “There are 2 famous lines for shellers. The first one is… ‘Oh my gosh that shell is absolutely gorgeous!’ and the second one is…’Awwww. If this shell were whole, it’d be perfect!’” hahaha How many times have we all said those line??!!!!
While I was on the shell pile digging around, Clark was in the water with his infamous shelling backhoe…
I knew he had something unusual when he came up to give me a shell. A BEAUTIFUL CRASSATELLA! We don’t often find these on Captiva.
Another beautiful day in paradise!
Shelling Goes To Guppies And Gulls
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The full moon low tide yesterday made for a beautiful morning walk at Blind Pass Captiva. But there was so much sand filling in around the jetty on both sides that I wasn’t finding the seashell treasures that usually build up there.
As you can see the beach on the left hand side has filled in again like it did last year in December so I walked along the sand bar towards the bridge….. and finally found treasures.
I was tickled to find this beautiful LIGHTNING WHELK up on the beach…
The minute I finished taking this picture below, the big WHELK caught me eye because it seemed to change position. There was a crab in there! He was tucked in there so deeply I didn’t see anything in there when I picked the shell up. Woops! Back in the water he went to grow big enough to claim his home a little better. So I had to hunt for another WHELK to make my Sanibel Six complete.
Earlier in the week, I walked down the beach in Captiva with my friend Ellen at low tide to find hundreds and hundreds of GULLS and other birds hanging out.
They were having a feast on thousands of tiny fish caught in the tidal pool. It was fascinating being there to see half these birds enjoying an early Thanksgiving and watching the other half probably feeling a little overstuffed wanting just to take a nap. Ellen and I couldn’t figure out what kind of fish they were munching o so I’ll just call them Guppies… I know they aren’t guppies… but enjoy Guppies And Gulls with Ellen and me.
Seashells Open Your Eyes
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The other day, shelling sistah Tricia G asked me if I’ve ever found a MARGINELLA on Sanibel since I don’t have one listed on the SEASHELL IDENTIFICATION page. I’ve found them before but, come to think about it, I sure haven’t found one in a long time. So last night, we headed for the lighthouse because I was on the hunt for that sneaky MARGINELLA. To double my chances, I reminded Super Sheller Clark that I wanted to find one to add to the I.D. page so I told him to be on the lookout too.
Marginella
Yippee! I found one!….. er…..well…. Clark found it. He was scooping at the surf line when all the sudden I hear him laugh. “Look what I found”.
Marginellas and a broken dove
Then he found another one! And then yes, I found that little one on the right. Whew- I wasn’t completely out-shelled. Keep in mind, the biggest one is just shy of 1/2 inch and they sort of look like a BUBBLE if the aperture side is down so they aren’t easy to find. I found the broken one on the left too so I added it to the photo since I thought it was the same shell.
Marginella and Dove? aperture
Dang it! That shell on the left really doesn’t even look like a MARGINELLA at all since it has those teeth on the lip. I couldn’t even see those teeth until I took the picture and looked at it on the computer. In the last few years I can’t even look at my phone or a menu without holding them as far as my arms will extend. You know what I mean? Ha! Geez. Oh well, I’ve been fortunate so far with my eyes so I shouldn’t complain….. it’s just weird…. I’m just sayin. 
Alright, back to the shell…. I think the broken shell on the far left is a DOVE shell just by what’s left of it but I could be wrong (I gotta get back to trusting my own eyes again- yikes!). It’s not like I can where “readers” on the beach…. maybe? ….. nahhhh.
Brown banded wentletrap
I didn’t need glasses to spot this BROWN-BAND WENTLETRAP though. Love that color running through it!
Brown banded wentletrap aperture
Nancy from Seashell Wreaths by Nancy reminded me that the name WENTLETRAP is derived from a Dutch word meaning spiral staircase.
Wentletrap staircases
We were on the mini shell hunt so we ran across lots of the BUBBLE shells…. appropriately named as well….
Bubble shells
We found lots of AUGERS which again, look like their name…
Augers
So how about SHARP-RIB DRILL? That flat rib or blade off the sides is pretty sharp, huh?
Sharp-rib Drills
Now this is getting funny! I didn’t plan on dissecting common names of shells tonight but it’s kind of fun, right? So let’s look at the KEYHOLE LIMPET…..
Keyhole Limpet
….and the BUTTON shell….
Button shell
This CONE shell certainly looks like an ice cream cone….
Dusky Cone
But I’m not sure that this RICE OLIVE shell looks like an olive but it sure looks like rice…
Rice Olive
Picture this next shell on top of Barbie’s doll head… yep, it’s a TURBAN. Again, I just thought this shell was pretty and knobby. I didn’t realize it had a hole in it and the barnacles attached…the eyes are going! Oh well, it’s still pretty.
Chestnut Turban
We had our eyes (failing or not) focused on finding a special miniature shell by looking for the particular pattern of a MARGINELLA and we found it. We shell this beach on the east end of Sanibel regularly but we’ve probably walked right by hundreds of them just because we have been focused on other patterns of shells that we see on a regular basis. i Love Shelling. I really do because it opens my eyes to see beautiful things that I normally would never appreciate.
Our Sanibel lighthouse shells last night
Snowy Egret
Sanibel pier sunset
Write From The Beach GiveAway!
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a Sand Dollar.... breathes through its feet
I have been combing the beaches all my life finding seashells and beach treasures, viewing sea life and beach birds. This summer I was so inspired by all of these beautiful beach creatures I photograph and blog about that I decided to pick up the paint brush again. One thing led to another and before I knew it, I had 16 designs that I packaged into notecard gift packs with FUN FACTS about each sea creature for a fun twist. Check a few out…..
a Horse Conch ... makes ocean sounds if it's next to your ear
a Dolphin ... sleeps with one eye open and one eye closed
They really do! Half of their brain sleeps while the other half is awake…. so the half that’s asleep- the eye closes.
a White Pelican ... has an average wingspan of 10 feet
They are HUGE!
Here’s what the front of the Sea Life box looks like…
a Seahorse ... has a single mate for life
There are 4 designs (2 each) in each 8-pack box of Seashells, Beach Treasures, Sea Life and Birds.
Back of the Beach Treasures box
So now you know what I’ve been up to when I’m not blogging. I am very excited that some of my favorite retailers already have them in their stores- check them out! Click on Store Locations .
AND now for the GIVEAWAY!……
Win 4 boxes of Write From The Beach notecards as a “thank you” for your inspiration….
- i Love Shelling Seashells
- Sea Life
- Hello, Birdies
- Beach Treasures
- Free Shipping in U.S. (outside U.S.?- We’ll work something out)
Here’s how to win……
Go to WriteFromTheBeach.com to look at all 4 boxed notecards and photos of each individual card, then come back here to make a comment HERE ON THIS POST (comments on Writefromthebeach.com will be disqualified-sorry!). Just tell me which ones you like best…or any comment will do because the pick will be random.
That’s it! Just make a comment HERE on or before Friday, September 3, 2010
If you don’t know how to make a comment- Click on the Title of this post (Write From The Beach GiveAway!) and scroll to the bottom then follow directions. Or you can click on the number in parenthesis (for example (1) or (0) ) after where it says “By pam – Comments” under the post title.
Seashells Under The Rainbow
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We headed to the beach after a nice, well needed rain shower on Tuesday evening. When we started walking down the path to the beach, the sky seemed to get a strange yellowish tint …….then the rainbow. But wait…..a double rainbow!
As I took a picture of this live LIGHTNING WHELK (for you Barbara!), a man out of nowhere plops an even bigger live whelk right beside it. It looks like I staged those 2 whelks in the first picture but that’s exactly how he put it down…..perfect! Not 5 seconds later, a sweet little girl came running over to see those 2 whelks. Her grandparents Janice and Ted saw that I was photographing the shells and told her to leave them alone………I felt like I was in slow motion…..snapping away and telling them Kayleigh (from yesterday’s post Cherub Under the Rainbow) was quite alright if it was okay if I photographed her. She is aaaddorrraable! A little seashell cherub has come to inspect the whelks to make sure they are happy and healthy.
This one is MY little seashell cherub under the rainbow…….teehee
