Playing in the Mud...Flats!

Team Cheri decided to try something a little different, we went to Bunche Beach....which is just across from Sanibel, in Fort Myers. It has a wide flat beach and traditionally has more mud, which brings different shells....and a little different adventure! It has a very flat long area, and exposes a lot of area during low tides....

Most things on this type of terrain will be partially buried so you walk along rather slowly and look...There is a lot of live things, so you figure that the beauties are occupied.....like this King's Crown....

 But it wasn't this time!!!

There were Rose Petal Tellins....

....we ran across an area that had so many....I (we) ended up picking up so many.....I love these, and until tonight, I had very few! Here is just a sampling...

The color doesn't do these justice.....they vary, but most are a beautiful pink!

There were lots of Sunray Venus....this one was a surprise....

 A pair!

There were even some tiny pair!

Lots of minis also....Like this nice shiny Marginella....

Talk about Minis....there were several places along the beach like this....

When you get down and look closer, this is what you see! There must be Billions of minis there....I brought some home in a small ziplock, just to see what there was....I saw so many clear Bubble shells, tiny Cerith, something that looked like clear mussels...I will have to let you know later what all is in there!

Here is a tiny pair of Morton's Egg Cockles....I found a lot of these!

Today was Cheri's day for finding King's Crowns that were empty....she found several and gave them to me!! Here's just one, I think I ended up with six!

I'm anxious to see how they clean up!

She also found this perfect pair of Razor Clams....That was a first for her!

Besides these we saw LOTS of interesting live things....I had to 'hit the books' to find out what some were, some I never found out....like these guys....

I think they are tubes from an "ice cream cone" worm...that is fine packed sand in a cone shape....they turned into sand!

These LIVE Nassa's were all over the place....these guys were gathered on a horseshoe crab carcass in the tidal pools!

Cheri got this shot of a 'Tube Dwelling Anemone', (I think) 

 it was neat....when he drew in, it was just a hole in the sand.....

We found this HUGE True Tulip skeleton that was covered in Live Marginellas...

They started falling in my hand as I held it for Cheri and I to take pics...

There were so many live Marginellas, all over the place.....(That's King's Crown eggs in the center of it)

Cheri found a couple of LIVE Wentletraps!

Here is a King's Crown laying an egg casing.....

I took 65 pictures of the cool stuff at Bunche, and chose only 30 to show, not including the ones Cheri took!  If you look closely, that is a Bald Eagle in that tree....So amazing!

...and the sunset NEVER disappoints!
That is the bridge on the Causeway to Sanibel....

I found these crazy hermits, running around in the tidal pool like crazy, I couldn't resist taking a video!....Notice the live Kings crown creeping out of their way..enjoy!

We are on to another adventure tonight....Stay tuned!!

::Shelllady Hugs::