Archive for Parchment Worms
As The Sanibel Sky Terns
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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.
There were ROYAL TERNS and LAUGHING GULLS joining in on the fun too.
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.
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.
Doesn’t “Beach Bling” even make PARCHMENT WORMS sound better?
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…
…and the RED MANGROVE SEED PODS mixed in…
This baby BLUE CRAB shell would fall into this category too…
But still the best thing to watch was the beautiful birds soaring and swirling in the stormy sky. They definitely stole the show
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Sea Potato Heart Urchins
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Circle of Sanibel Beached Palm
Along with seashells and sealife, palm trees are even washing up on the beaches of Sanibel and Captiva.
Beached Palm Circle
I heard from blog friend Marcy that there were hundreds of SEA BISCUITS washing up on the east end of Sanibel. What? I’ve never seen SEA BISCUITS (they look like fat and puffy SAND DOLLARS) on this coast before, only in the upper Florida Keys. I ran down there and found these….
Potato or Heart Urchins
Tons of HEART URCHINS! This looks like a bunch of potatoes that just spilled out of a sack, right? That’s why they are also called SEA POTATOES. I’ve never seen so many HEART URCHINS washed up like this… or SEA URCHINS.
Purple Sea Urchin piled on beach
Hundreds of Purple Sea Urchins
I took this next picture because there were so many unusual sea critters all together in one place.
Beach critters
Let’s start with that huge STONE CRAB claw that’s laying on a PARCHMENT WORM, then clockwise is a PEANUT WORM (in the middle of the picture), a HEART URCHIN, HORSESHOE CRAB, a couple of SEA SPONGES, a PEN SHELL then the black blob is SEA PORK (not an oil tar ball!!!)
Sanibel Beachcombing
Who knows what tomorrow will bring.
Sunset on seashells
Santa Brought Gifts of the Sea
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Lighthouse beach on Christmas day
We couldn’t believe that the parking lot at the Lighthouse was so packed today! There were lots of other people celebrating Christmas on the beach with us and they had their bags and buckets overflowing with seashells.
I’ve seen a lot of seaweed and algae on the beaches the last couple of days but the Lighthouse has the thickest deposit and is mixed with tons of PARCHMENT WORMS. They look like whitish tubular sausage casings. They may look ugly on the beach to some people but this is the kind of stuff that catches the shells and drags them on the beach too. This is a good time to have a stick, net or Clark’s shelling “backhoe” so you can move some of that stuff around to see what’s underneath. I saw bags of LIGHTENING WHELKS, FIGHTING CONCHS and MUREXES. Clark was finding gorgeous PAPER FIGS which are normally broken by the time they get to the beach since they are so thin and delicate. All of the parchment worms and seaweed protect them a bit so they get to the beach in one piece.
Lisa and Sage (Toronto)
Santa’s elves (love those hats!!!), Lisa and her daughter Sage, have been visiting from Toronto for 3 weeks and said the shelling has been great. Lisa told me she has been coming to Sanibel every year since she was 5 years old. Her father brought her and now Lisa follows the tradition and brings her daughter. Sage said her best shell was a 10 inch HORSE CONCH that she found last Saturday. They said that last weekend was the best shelling that they’ve seen in years. (…and I was out of town!) They hadn’t found much today since they’ve gotten a little more picky but it’s also a tradition to walk the beach on Christmas day with their adorable Santa hats. Not a bad tradition.
Judy (Arizona) and Mary Jo (Sanibel)
I was very excited to see Mary Jo on the beach since she’s a friend, fellow sheller and a shell expert. She works at one of my favorite places…..The Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum. I always like to talk “shelling” with Mary Jo because she is a wealth of knowledge. I love shelling but I’m not a scientific shell expert …..only a shelling expert (if there is there such a thing) so I love to learn from her. Her friend Judy (her college roommate) who was visiting for the holiday, had already filled her fist with LIGHTENING WHELKS, PEN SHELLS, PAPER FIGS and I think a FIGHTING CONCH too so said she couldn’t carry anything else.
Thanks, Santa for bringing lots of treasures. Merry Christmas!
