Shelllady: A Night Time Easter Bonnet

Thursday, April 11, 2019

A Night Time Easter Bonnet

My time is growing short, as usual I'm trying to do as much as I can while I'm here in SW Florida! It just so happens that the tides are only offering one High and one Low tide per day. The Low is late so being the Avid shellers we are (I know many of you have another word for that!) Team Cheri has to check it out!
The tides are not super low, but we still need to see....right? And I will never pass a chance for a beach walk!

I was going to miss the sunset, so I took some pictures from the car on the Causeway headed to Sanibel....

It was immediately obvious that the new West Winds were making a difference on the shelling.... My Dad's favorite shell was a Shark's eye, I always feel like he is there when these pop up!!....and this was the first shell Cheri found! ;)

There were so many Shark's eyes and Apple Murex....

Banded Tulips....

Lightning Whelks of all sizes...even larger ones!!

Then we started seeing True Tulips!!!

This one I found....I thought it was a Beauty...

Then Cheri picked this one up!.....Even more Beautiful, and HUGE!

Then more!

Then came the Horse Conchs.....Big Ones..

Buried under the sand....see those knobs??

and Medium/small ones!

Cheri found this Helmet piece....we wish it had been complete!

I found this amazing Olive!!! .....it's HUGE and perfect!

Finally a beautiful Alphabet, Cheri found this buried just waiting....

...and a piece of a tiny J!!! (Junonia)

She also found this Dolphin Vertebrae...(I think)...

I even found Bubbles and some Wentletraps....in the dark...see it?

I found what I think is an Apple Snail (freshwater) at the Lighthouse!

It's hard to tell in the picture, but it's nearly transparent.

Since the red tide last summer we have found very little live stuff...tonight I saw more than I had seen in a long time, a live Lightning Whelk...(forgot to take a pic)
A Sea Anemone...

A huge live Sea Urchin....which I carried back into the Gulf since he was way up on the beach....

Cheri saved Bunches of Lined Sea Stars that were all over the place...on dry land....she took them to the tidal pools as the tide was beginning to come back in....

Look how fast these guys move!!

We had some fun watching a live Flame Box Crab...

I have been searching for a Scotch Bonnet since they began to wash in after the storm before Christmas....and have had no luck....just before we were to head home, Cheri walked over toward me, looked down...and there it was....

...and she gave it to me!! How cool is that...we call that a friend shell.....

Now to clean it up and get it ready for Easter! :)

As usual, we had a great time....were crazy tired...but would do it again in a heartbeat....

Here are the final finds for the night....turns out I got many 'friend shells' from Cheri!