East Coast and Eco-Tour with Eggs on Sunday

 Friday the Shell Raisers finally got all together and we headed out on an adventure to the East Coast. Specifically to Mizelle-Johnson State park, near Dania Beach. Liz and I have been there previously and have had good luck.  When we got there, there was a renourishment going on, they had hauled in lots of sand and the beach was badly eroded away. 

We brought buckets to collect coral, and there was none in sight....but what was in sight were Portugese Man-of-war jellyfish....we had to keep our eyes out because they were all over the place, including the surf and the beach was so narrow, we were concerned because these beautiful creatures are known to cause a lot of pain with just a small touch.

We were disappointed at the shape of the beach, or lack of it, and no shells...it's always been interesting to see new things...like these Goose Barnacles on the bottom of a flip flop!

There seemed to be an awful lot of trash and not much else.  We left there and headed North toward Fort Lauderdale, stopped at 2 more beaches up to Deerfield Beach and it was the same...Man-of-wars and no beach. I talked to one lady that said they have had super strong winds and rip tides for more than 3 weeks and it has destroyed the beaches. Another couple suggested we go to the West coast as they were known for shelling!!! She couldn't figure out why we came to the east coast!!!

I didn't find anything, but Liz managed to find a few things... including a Hamburger Bean.... I found NOTHING!!

So we jumped back in the Car and headed back toward home on the West Coast with a stop for a nice lunch! It was a bit disappointing but we had a good visit!

So Sunday Liz and I headed back to the mud-flats in Fort Myers. We intended to do some shelling but saw so many interesting things!! We first ran up on these three large cloth 'bags', neither of us had the nerve to open them and see what was in them, but around them were beans!!! Yes, beans of every type, with Macaroni, rice, and all kinds of stuff!

There was even a chicken egg there!!

and quite a bit of change!! When we came back from our walk, someone had turned the blue 'bags' over and it looked like table cloths filled with cut up food!! I would like to know the story about this! So on we went checking out the mangroves and flats, along with a variety of beautiful birds!

the white ones are Ibis, and I believe the 'greyish' guy in the center may be a Little Blue Heron.

Liz snapped this one of a Great Blue Heron

I think this is a closer view of the little Blue Heron

and I think this is a Reddish Egret

I spent a long time in the books and on the internet to identify these things so bear with me....If you see something wrong, or know what something is, please let me know!!

We saw these...in several places, I believe it is an Encrusted Tunicate, 

a Tunicate is a Marine animal that spends tend to leave in groups, Sea squirts are a tunicate.

We saw LOTS of Egg cases....

Here is a Pear Whelk egg case with a Banded tulip putting his shells on to it!! The golden colored 'disks' are the Pear Whelk and the pinkish 'lacey' looking cases are the tulips.

I found the same thing!! in another place...

and another combo....

Lots of Tulip egg Cases...here is some on a pen shell...

These are Lightning Whelk egg cases....same basic shape as the pear, but larger. It's difficult to see, but the eggs are coming out of a very large Lightning Whelk that's mostly buried, and she has company, a smaller lightning whelk...I have seen this many times here in the flats! Kind of like a support group!

the thing I found interesting, even though we generally find Kings Crowns here, we did not see any egg casings for them.

 One of my favorite finds of the day today was this Chiton....a Chiton is a mollusk...it's very small and looks like it is made of armor....he was alive and slowly moved to the edge of this Lace Murex...

I looked and looked online and in my books, and I think it's a Common Eastern Chiton. Have you ever seen one?? This was a first for me!

Another interesting thing I thought was this American Tube dwelling Anemone....it is gorgeous and they were everywhere....they kind of reminded me of an eye with lashes....Liz got a pic of this one laying on his side as the water was at low tide

....I took this video for you to see how they react...

Isn't that interesting??

We saw a lot of this stuff, which at first glance looks just like coral, but it is a firm Jelly-like structure... a close-up makes it look like also a Tunicate, 

like Sea Pork but  I couldn't find enough information to confirm it....

We did actually see some shells....check out this beautiful Huge Kings Crown!

But Alas, it was alive...

Liz found quite a few treasures....

a couple pretty Lace Murex, a large and tiny Lightning Whelk, some pear Whelks, and of course 3 golf balls, quite a few Kings Crowns, a couple dusty cones, Olives, a pair of what looks like Pointed venus clams, rose tellins and Mortons egg cockles, a tagelus, Sunray Venus, what looks like a type of tellin a Scallop and 4 shark's eyes. 

Once again, I forgot to take a pic before I put my shells to soak ....so heres my finds...soaking!

Kings Crowns, Morton egg cockles, the large one at the top is a Dosinia.

There were LOTS of small spider crabs running around in the grass today....this one looked like he was running to greet me!! Enjoy!!

It was so interesting out there today....Liz and I called it an Eco-tour!! Stay tuned, I'm hoping for a few more posts before I have to head back North!

::Shelllady Hugs::