R&R and an Anniversary and Birthday!

Hubby and I took a little time to come back down to Florida for some R&R and to celebrate our Anniversary! We came down to Sanibel for our very first time 22 years ago! Wow does time fly!! We fell in love with Sanibel then, and love it even more now!! We will also be celebrating Hubby's birthday next Monday! A lot going on here....as usual!!

The shelling hasn't been very good, but as I have said many times before, the beach therapy is awesome!! The weather is exceptional also, I know most of you are cold, even wintry...and barefoot on the beach in November is definitely where I want to be!!

You know me, I can't resist the sunrises and sunsets....every one unique and different!

My first trip out, I found a nice Lightning Whelk at the lighthouse....

Team Cheri got together early this morning, we didn't find much to take home, but as usual we got to see some interesting things! It's always nice to see Live shells....we saw several Live LIghtning whelks....here's a couple

It's been a long time since we have found them out here, so this was a good thing! We also saw quite a few live Sand Dollars this morning...If you look closely on the first pic, you can see the little hairs around the edges and in the 'slits' on this guy!

Cheri found this tiny little Angel Wing....

I found another Lightning Whelk...

and we found some creepy stuff too....

This is some kind of a worm I found on the beach....

and check out the size of his crab claw!!!

So stay tuned....I'll continue working on Beach Therapy, and Shell Crafting/Painting Therapy....and maybe will have a few cool stories the share!!

::Hugs::

An Amazing Adventure of a Different Sort!

I have a few beach pictures from the last couple of days, but today Team Cheri went on a different adventure and I was so excited about it I'll skip to today!

 We went to Bonita Springs to Everglades Wonder Garden! It's an amazing little place, and I highly recommend it! I took sooo many pics, I had to reduce it down to some of my favorites! (I'll save the best of them for last! :) )

The gardens have these amazing flowers all throughout...

Unfortunately they were not named....but aren't they cool?

There are Turtles of every kind....

and of course GATORS!

And all kinds of birds....

Cockatiel... (I was feeding him through a tiny screen)....

Golden Pheasants.... isn't he amazing?!

White Peacocks....this one was doing his little dance while she watched...

'Regular' flamingos...

Cheri got a twofer and fed both a male and female together!

The highlight of the trip were the Flamingos!!! This wasn't physically on my Bucket list, but it should have been!!

They are gorgeous birds!! we got to feed them from our hands!

There was a little girl and her mom there who were extremely nervous to try....so Cheri went over and helped them to see how gentle these giant birds were....

It didn't work, they never did....but they were fascinated!

I got two of them eating out of my hand at the same time!

 The way they drank just fascinated me!!!

The Ibis were trying whenever possible to get the food....Cheri calls them Chickens....and they really do act like them!

How cool was this? Just Awesome!!

We capped the day off by visiting a cool Pottery shop!!! I forgot to take pictures after this one!...Pottery as Art

So many gorgeous things there.....What an awesome little town Bonita Springs is....check it out!  

My trip will be cut short as I have to fly out on Thursday, hopefully there will be at least one more adventure before I go....and I will catch you up, so....

Stay Tuned!

::Shelllady Hugs::

A Little Bunche of Life

Team Cheri decided to head to the beach in Fort Myers today, Bunche Beach.  It's always an adventure in the mud flats, and Cheri, being a Bird Nerd, can usually find lots of birds...I always learn so much when going Bird Nerding with her! 

We started out by seeing this beautiful Brittle Star....

Not really quite sure why it's called that because as you can see it's anything BUT Brittle! But they are very cool and such a pleasure to see it alive and well!

We also saw a few live Kings Crowns....

There were also lots of these 'Jelly Bubbles'....don't know what they are or what they are called, but they were all over the place, in and out of the tidal pools....

 they are connected to the mud....and appear to 'inflate' when submerged in the water....weird, but interesting!

Here's a video of one with a couple Live Marginellas....Marginellas are one of my favorite shells....so tiny, but so beautiful!

There were even some fiddler crabs out there fiddling!!! I love these guys.....

The small disc shaped things on these EMPTY Kings Crown are actually Egg casings.....so glad to see these, its so important for them to grow and multiply, so I opted to leave this one so these guys could grow....

This crown had a very shy Hermit crab in it....

Cheri got to do lots of Bird Nerding....she knows so much about these birds.... This guy is actually a 'White Morph Reddish Egret' 

Cheri says he has a baby out here, is rare because of his unusual coloring, and is actually rigged with a satellite tracking device so 'they' can keep track of him...

She spent a lot of time looking through the amazing lens on her camera, looking for leg tags and flags on migratory birds...

She actually found her first 'Nanotagged' plover....she was very excited! 
Being Nanotagged means that they are picked up by local towers and their migration path can be tracked. She thinks this plover is actually from Virginia Tech....small world! We are from Virginia and our daughter undergrad and Vet School training was there and our Son in law is currently in their PHD program.
Amazing stuff, huh?!


We did find several treasures to carry home....Sunray Venus pairs...

It's always been interesting to me that they seem sensitive to heat...most of this was buried in the mud, but you see the "pinkish" color, it was in the sun...

you may remember that at the very bottom of a past post here....I showed the color change when you boil them....


We found a few Rose Tellins....

 Cheri found a single Angel Wing....

 and we each found several empty Kings crowns...

It's always an adventure at Bunche.....

if you look closely, you will see the causeway bridge to Sanibel, so it's so close, and so different from the Sanibel beaches!

Stay tuned for the next adventure!

::Shelllady Hugs::