Archive for Conch
Beach Bling Is A Wonderful Thing
Posted by: | Comments
If you want to learn the types of seashells, sea life, vegetation and what the different kinds of mollusk egg cases look like and live in the Gulf Of Mexico, you’ve got your chance this week. It all washed up on the beach on the East end of Sanibel.
You can see it for miles. So many mollusk egg casings and PEN SHELLS galore!
MERMAID PURSES! Well, they are really SKATE EGG CASES…
HORSE CONCH EGG CASINGS (I shot this with the Nikon J1)…
WHELK EGG CHAINS…
Lots of CRABS too. This one is a STONE CRAB…
My friend Jane called me and said she found a dead crab shell on the beach that had a NAUTILUS shell pattern. She has found a NAUTILUS before so she would know! Wanna see? CLICK HERE . So I went to see this crab…and it does have that pattern! It’s a FLAME BOX CRAB…
I also saw lots of SEA WHIPS. This was the first time I’ve ever found a WHITE SEA WHIP…
We normally just find the purple SEA WHIPS but when I went to see Jane’s FLAME BOX CRAB she showed me this bright yellow WHIP she picked up as well.
There were oodles of PURPLE SEA URCHINS also ( J1)…
I always get questions about the bones on the beach. They are from the bait in the crab traps… not random dead carcasses. LOL
I also get a lot of questions about this guy on the left. It’s a SEA CUCUMBER…
Don’t worry, I saw lots of shells too. Mainly, the double DOSINIAS.
Cyber Sheller Alert! This next photo is really big so you can do a little shelling and blinging…
Looking through all this BEACH BLING, there are little treasures that look like this so you have to look closely…
Some goodies were still washing in at the shoreline as well…
The big find was by Seth (FL)! He found this huge HORSE CONCH on the sand bar near Donax Rd. Here he is with Erin and Reese…
See? BEACH BLING is a wonderful thing… (J1)
PS- Some of you know I’ve been testing a new Nikon J1 camera. It isn’t very spontaneous but when I do catch a nicer shot than with my spontaneous, trusty, easy, clear Panasonic DMC…. I’ve noted it.
Blind Pass Captiva Still Stirring Seashells
Posted by: | Comments
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!
Jubilant Juvenile Junonia
Posted by: | Comments
How can you not feel jubilant after seeing this teeny tiny juvenile JUNONIA? I can only imagine jubilance Jean felt when she found it.
Over the weekend, I met Jean (Vermont) doing the Sit ‘n Sift on the huge shell pile at Blind Pass and she told me about a really purple FIGHTING CONCH she found earlier in the week. Before I knew it, she had gone to her cottage across the street to get that purple shell plus a few others. These are three gorgeous color variations of FIGHTING CONCHS she had brought back to the beach to show me.
Unfortunatley, you can’t really see just how purple the left CONCH is from this photo but maybe it’s because that orange is so vibrant in the middle one but trust me, it is really much more violet in person.
So after I took pictures of these CONCHS, she brought out another bag with this exquisite treasure that just about knocked me out of my flip flops…
Jean brought this cutie little JUNONIA back to the island to show a friend what she had found several years ago at Blind Pass Captiva. I’m so glad she did so we would get to see it too!
I asked her if she had seen the exhibit at the 2012 Sanibel Shell Show of the juvenile JUNONIAS that Weezie Sachs won a Red Ribbon for. She had seen it too!
The one she found is even smaller than both of those. Of course since we were on the beach, I didn’t have a coin to show a size comparison but you can see just how small this treasure is by looking at it next to her rings on her finger. Amazing! It’s so sweet and tiny!
It’s my new fave mini I’ve ever seen. Thank you so much for sharing your shells with us, Jean!
PS- I have to give a BIG shout out to Yvonne Greer! I would have missed this big shell pile at Blind Pass if it wasn’t for her contacting me to spread the shelling news. I hadn’t had a chance to get down to Blind Pass to check on the shells on my own so thank you Yvonne! We would have missed this baby JUNONIA and all the other goodies on my last post.
Scouting The Beaches
Posted by: | Comments
After almost 2 days of high north/west winds, I bundled up in my warmest clothes then hit the 45 degree beach this morning. I know some of you are experiencing much lower temps than that ….. but geeez….the wind chill was killer. My finger tips almost froze off! This poor guy was not too happy either rolling in the surf but he was still healthy and kicking.
I was a little surprised but there was only a few left over shells at the jetty rocks on Captiva…
One side of the sand bar in the pass had a few COCKLES and CALICO SCALLOPS…
The other side had no shells but still had a beautiful view…
Then I went home. Late this afternoon, I couldn’t stand it. I went back to Blind Pass to scout out the beach again thinking the shells were finally coming in.
Not yet still! But I did find Susan from Fort Walton Beach, FL. She found a few treasures including this double ALTERNATE TELLIN…
There were a few LETTERED OLIVES, FIGHTING CONCHS and COCKLES to brighten the day. I also saw lots of HORSE CONCH EGG CASES…
Tomorrow, the mercury will start to rise. Oh thank goodness. And maybe we’ll see some shell piles too!
Tiny Trail In The Sand
Posted by: | Comments
live dwarf olive
I took a lovely walk at the lighthouse beach with my friend Susan S. this morning and pointed out a few sand trails leading to live LETTERED OLIVES …
Olive shell siphon
Then she asked me what kind of shell was making this trail…
live dwarf olive sand trail
It looked just like an AUGER trail as I remembered those beautiful tracks I had photographed in 2010 then turned into “AUGER ART” . But I was wrong! It was a DWARF OLIVE. I wonder how many times I had seen them but had just assumed it was an AUGER. I know…never assume.
live rice olive shell
I like to call these tiny little OLIVES “RICE SHELLS” since they look like grains of rice. Here’s a short video of this live little cutie…
But wait! We saw more live shells. Robyn from Singapore (!) wanted to know what was coming out of this shell that was so bright orange. It’s a live HORSE CONCH! And all of that “orange stuff” is the live mollusk that made the shell….. and as I was explaining that, the animal squirted a stream of salty water at us. Ha!
Robyn Singapore horse conch
She knew she couldn’t keep a live shell so she happily walked it out to the sand bar where she found it.
live horse conch sanibel lighthouse
Colorful Juvenile Milk Conch On Sanibel
Posted by: | Comments
As Jane and I walked all along West Gulf Drive after those cold (down to 37 degrees!) winds came through this past week, I heard her say “Whoa!” then bend down to pick up a shell. She found a JUVENILE MILK CONCH!
A MILK CONCH is very unusual to find here on Sanibel since it’s a caribbean shell.
Look how colorful it still is!
If you remember, Beach Girl Robyn found an adult MILK CONCH along the same beach in September and I said the same…. “Unusual”. Maybe I should say it’s a “rare” find here instead. To find it here, it’s way more rare than finding a JUNONIA! In any case, this 5 inch shell a fantastic find.
So then we keep walking and she’s about 5 paces ahead of me. I see her run and pick up something else in a hurry. She yells “Aha! A SCOTCH BONNET!”. What???
Yes, my buddy Jane also found a perfect SCOTCH BONNET right in front of me. I felt like I was walking with Clark for goodness sakes! Heehee. No, really….we were both ecstatic.
Note to self: Never let Jane walk in front of me while we are shelling together. Ha!
We also met SS Jenny (Shelling Sister) sifting through a sweet honey hole where she was finding oodles of FIGHTING CONCHS, WHELKS and OLIVES. She got out there before sunrise and used her iLS lighted cap she got for Christmas! Right after I took this picture she found two ALPHABET CONES in the same spot. Weehoo! She had no trouble finding the Sanibel Six many times over.
Congrats to Jane and Jenny on your seaside treasure trove!
