Archive for Moon Snail
Collecting Colorful Seashells In The Gulf
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Mother Nature has been providing lots of gifts from her sea this week! Not only did she give us all the Beach Bling on the east end, we were finding some excellent shells off West Gulf Drive west of Tarpon Bay Road this weekend.
In the water at the shoreline, Clark found a few ALPHABET CONES, colorful juvie HORSE CONCHS, SHARK’S EYES, dark colorful LETTERED OLIVES and BANDED TULIPS, a double CALICO CLAM and a double ALTERNATE TELLIN.
I was shelling the nice piles on the beach…
I found this sweet little pinkish FLORIDA SPINY JEWELBOX…
And 6 sets of pink and yellow ALTERNATE TELLINS. Here are two of them…
Candy!
Just in case you didn’t catch it in the first photo, take a look at how pretty and dark orange this FLORIDA CONE is. Clark found this just as we were about to leave the beach. It’s my fave shell of the weekend!
Aqua Water And Seashells
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I thought the 2 week old huge shell pile at Blind Pass would be completely picked over by now. I was so wrong! The minute I walked on the beach, I saw Mike find this awesome SHARK’S EYE…
His mom Holly found some FLAT SCALLOPS!
This whole Illinois family was there to bask in the shell glory. From left to right is Suzanne, Matthew, Holly, Mike and Isaac…
I was so curious to look in their shell bags so I figured you would like it too…
We met another very happy sheller from Illinois and her name happens to be Suzanne too. It’s a small world on a shell pile.
Yep, I got a photo of her shell bag too! She found TURBANS, a NUTMEG and The Sanibel Six
Every aqua wave brought in another treasure.
I ran over to the Sanibel side of Blind Pass to see a family scouring the sand bar in search of goodies. They found a few FIGHTING CONCHS and bits and pieces of larger shells but the shore line is lined with KITTENS PAWS, AUGERS, CERITHS and more.
As you can see, the shelling is fabulous at Blind Pass for the weekend but I have a fun reminder. This might be the weekend that CBS Sunday Morning might air the segment by correspondent Bill Geist as he visited Sanibel for the 75th Sanibel Shell Fair and Show. So set your Tivos or DVRs to CBS from 9am to 10:30. You just might see Leroy or me or some of your other favorite shellers and of course Sanibel! I’m keeping my fingers crossed it’s on!
UPDATE: I just received an official email today… ”We just heard that the shell story has been pushed back from its original March 18th air date. The CBS producer is hoping the segment will air in early April. She promises to give us a heads up once a date is confirmed …….”
Well darn. I’ll keep you posted as well when I hear something else.
Shelling For The Holidays
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The holiday season is in full swing on Sanibel and Captiva islands so I have been a busy little elf! First of all, I’d like to introduce the brand new i Love Shelling 2012 Calendar chock full of beautiful Sanibel photos and of course our beloved seashells. Now you can enjoy shelling 12 months of the year!
Here’s a sneak peak of January’s sunset photo and CLICK HERE to see all 12 months and get one for yourself or as a gift for your shelling buddy.
We also hit the beaches this week to find a few shells and lots of Beach Bling. We found big old WHELK and CONCH pieces I love for yard shells along with a few SEA WHIPS, LONG SPINED SEA URCHINS, PURPLE SEA URCHINS, PEN SHELLS, CRAB SHELLS and this little BRITTLE STAR too.
There were lots of DOSINIAS mixed in with hundreds of SAILORS EARS and TRANSVERSE ARKS…
I even saw a few bones scattered along the beach. These are from bait in the crab traps in the gulf that get tossed around in rough surf.
STONE CRABS are what lots of those traps are made to catch. When fishermen bring in the traps, they only take one claw from a STONE CRAB since the claws have the best meat. They throw the crab back without killing it because they know the crab can eat and defend itself with only one claw until another claw grows back. Here is a STONE CRAB claw lying on the beach that could have been a good appetizer if it had been freshly caught. Darn!
There were HORSESHOE CRABS too …
And a BLUE CRAB…
I also saw this MOON SHELL (SHARK’S EYE) EGG COLLAR…
I met a wonderful local man Frank, who moved here in 1964 and still loves to walk the beaches and pick up shells especially with his daughter Connie. He told me he was 87 but he looks like he is no older than 72! Thank you Frank for your service for our country in WW2.
Here are some of the mini shells Frank and Connie collected when I saw them along Middle Gulf Drive.
I also have photos of the yesterday’s oh-so-fun Captiva Holiday Village golf cart parade. Here’s one picture of our Junonia Jalopy but I’ll have to show you the rest tomorrow. It was a blast! All of the other cart were so darn cute!
Check out my new tee shirt! I wore my new “Oh CONE All Ye Faithful” Christmas design v-neck tee. I got so many compliments- so much fun ! And don’t forget to check out the 2012 i Love Shelling Calendar too….. and the new online i Love Shelling Shop….. Or the fun faves at Shelling Shop. You see? I’ve been a little Santa’s helper for the good seashell loving girls and boys. Ho Ho Ho!
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!
Weekend in Paradise
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The weekend started with a spectacular sunset painting the sky with brilliant hues of reds, yellows, blues and even purple.
We figured this was a great sign to get out on the water in our boat to search for treasure. We found it!
And I found three MOONS! … a BABY’S EAR MOON, a SHARK’S EYE MOON, a COLORFUL MOON SHELL…
Clark found a huge empty TRUE TULIP on one of the mud flats around North Captiva…
There was a wrack line of shells on Cayo Costa…
There were hundreds… no, I think there were thousands of SOUTHERN SURF CLAMS littering the beach…
Here are a few all cleaned up…
Here’s a close up of the SOUTHERN SURF CLAM since I’ve never shown them before. This would be a great shell for shell crafting!
We found most of our keepers on the beach but other than Clark’s big TULIP, we only found these little FLY SPECK CERITHS on the mud flats…
We had heard there was red tide moving onto the Cayo Costa area but we didn’t feel that irritating tickle in the chest and had no “red tide cough”. We did see a few dead fish which was kind of creepy at first but then it seems we can always find something cool about any beach drift.
A few more treasures from our weekend in paradise…
Sanibel Seashell Update: Blind Pass to Lighthouse Beach
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In the last couple of days, the seashells have been rolling in with the surf at Blind Pass Sanibel and a few so far at the lighthouse too. The above photo of a sampling of what we found so you can enjoy virtual shelling ASAP if you can’t be here right now. So go ahead…. click on the photo above and I’ll wait for you so I can show you the rest of the photos. (whistle, hum, whistle….la, la, la….)
Okay, you ready for the rest?
Look at the first photo on the bottom left part of the pic. You see where the yellowish color meets the greenish water? That’s that drop off I was talking about yesterday and where we found most of the better shells (like my ALPHY). This was at Blind Pass Sanibel Sunday afternoon.
Then the water was receding with the low tide and they started washing up on the beach….
Dayna from Sanibel (I’m sorry if I misspelled your name! My notes disappeared) with her big catch of the day… a huge HORSE CONCH. And her daughter!. Congrats!
Mindy from New York was specifically looking for collecting KITTENS PAWS.
There were oodles of them along with COCKLES and JEWELBOXES….
Oooooh, I found a FLAT!
Then we walked the beach by the lighthouse last night and found the PEN SHELLS and double DOSINIAS were littered along the shore. That’s a great sign for great shelling to come! The PEN SHELLS are the first ones to get dislodged out in the gulf after a rough seas so this could mean great shells will wash up the next few days.
Nice LIGHTNING WHELK, huh?
This teeny tiny baby crab was alive and crawling around on this very cool old SHARK’S EYE. Can you believe the color?
This LONG SPINED SEA URCHIN was still alive so he went gently back into the water.
I met 2 great gals from Kentucky looking for WENTLETRAPS Sharon and Renee (friends of HL!). I think the had been picked over by someone else but we still found about 10 wentles and lots of other goodies.
Goodies like this fabulous WORM SHELL Clark found…
We are having a very dark, rainy day with rumblings of thunder predicted all day so I’ll just wait another day to go shelling and another night to see skies like last night on the beach. I couldn’t decide which photo I like better so I’m posting both.
