Shelllady

Shelllady

Friday, June 26, 2020

Mother Nature Wins


Team Cheri got together again last night for a nice long walk and talk...(as Cheri calls them). We went to Blind Pass on Sanibel, it is always an interesting beach that seems to constantly change due to storms, wind, and waves. You never know what you will see or find! There weren't many shells, but I did add quite a few to my supply of Surf Clams for painting. I found this cool powder pink crab shell, which I just took a pic of and put back....

Further down the beach there were so many Turtle nests.....they are numbered as they are found I saw #1 and #85. The first on had obviously hatched already....if you look closely you can see tiny little turtle tracks!!



How awesome is that....it really helps to be out there with a Turtle person like Cheri, so many things to know and look at.... these tracks Cheri determined was a 'false crawl' which means she just came up on the shore and went back out, didn't lay her eggs....

You can see in the first pic that it was recent too, since the water had washed up....too bad we didn't get to see her!

The birds on Sanibel are always fascinating to me, and Cheri is also a Bird Nerd, she loves to take pictures of them and this time we saw a Rosette Spoonbill, (of course I wasn't ready with my camera), but it has such beautiful bright pink colors. We saw this Great Egret, 

Cheri had her camera with her and snapped some beautiful pictures I'm sure!....

How does she do that?? :)

These Ibis have their mating plumage, and it is so bright and colorful....I tried to snap a pic of this guy while he was running by, look at those gorgeous legs and beak!!

During all this Mother Nature visit, we were noticing the sky....

Cheri checked the radar on her phone, and all looked fine....Pretty quickly it started getting interesting......we kept taking pictures of it...




We even saw this double rainbow! 
There is one on the right, that's pretty obvious, but there is one off to the left of it also....we pretty quickly realized that the storm was going to come over us, and we were definitely about to get wet....
Wet is fine...we've been there....

it was the lightning that made us decide it was time to head up to the nearest cover...and quickly....obviously I quit taking pics....we sat there on the porch of the nearby store watching the most amazing lightning! After a while, we made a dash for our cars and I drove across the causeway with lightning on both sides of me...so wish I could of caught some of it on camera...it would spread across the clouds, then hit in the same spot, air to ground, multiple times, then back across the clouds, almost like 'fingers' of lightning !

For quite a while I forgot about all that's going on these days, it was just us and Nature, I can't tell you how awesome that is....just put today's worries and troubles behind you and look at all Mother nature has to offer, it's the best therapy there is! It was an awesome night!! 

Stay Tuned!

::Shelllady Hugs::

Thursday, June 25, 2020

Beach Therapy Time Again!

Hubby and I decided if we had to continue on quarantine, we'd do it in the Sunshine State....at least for a couple of weeks. The water is so clear and beautiful here with that greenish-turquoise hue. Just makes you say ahhhhhh! 

As I have said many times before, the shelling isn't great but the beach walks are awesome! Team Cheri got back on track (of course with social distancing) and headed out for some long beach walks.

I did find one of my favorite shells, in my favorite size...Love the color on this one!


Cheri found what we think is a wedding shell, (shells that were bought and put out as decorations for wedding... but maybe not, still a beauty! We think it is a juvenile Eastern Murex.
Tonight we saw a lot of live things...love to see this!!

Cheri saw this Sea Hare up on the beach....I love these guys!...
He just swam away so gracefully....
They have large wings a look like a butterfly under water....I'll get a video next time!

The trees had lots of Live Barnacles and Periwinkles...


There were sea stars...both on and under the sand....
 and lot s of large live Sand dollars...

Check out the pattern on this one....


 We found another Sea Hare further up the beach....the coloring on him was amazing! We tried to get him to open his wings, but he was stubborn!
 He almost looked like he was posing for me in this pic...

and who could resist picking up a baby on the beach??

It was such a beautiful evening....and, as always, GREAT Therapy!

Stay tuned....

::Shelllady Hugs::