Fighting Conch

This is one of my favorite pics taken on vacation on Sanibel.  I was wading in the Gulf of Mexico with my Go Pro when I encountered this Florida fighting conch in the shimmering water with waves lapping over it.  (No staging!)  This is a pretty common scene on Sanibel, which is world renown for its abundance of seashells...and I never get tired of it.

Sanibel Lunch

The seagull in the foreground looks as though it's ignoring the camera and contemplatively gazing into the distance.  But, actually, this bird is playing the role of a sentry guarding its lunch. What's on the menu?   You can see it!

Sanibel is world renowned for its sea shelling.   Beautiful shells (too numerous to numerate) wash up on the beach every day.  (I snapped this pic with my iPhone while strolling the beach at sunset.  The shells just washed up like that.  Incredible, isn't it?)  One of my favorite shell species is on the right and left -- the Florida fighting conch. 

The shell is actually a house for a mollusk.  So, when they wash ashore many times they try to leave their shell…to go where, I'm not sure.  But, when you see hundreds of these shells scattered on the beach and know that there's a living creature inside…well…you want to help.  Last summer, thinking the mollusks would bake alive beneath the searing Sanibel sun, I diligently started to scoop up as many as I could and toss them back into the Gulf of Mexico.  With so many Florida fighting conch shells on the beach that I almost couldn't walk without stepping on them, I quickly realized the task was not just overwhelming but impossible.  It was a bit sad.  

Fast forward to last month.  I watched a flock of seagulls hovering over a variety of shells, picking at them --- and pulling out the mollusk inside.  Lunch!  Watching this unfold firsthand made me feel much better.  If the shells don't naturally make it back into the water with the tide, they'll serve as a healthy meal for a bird. (Yes, the thing dangling from the seagull's beak is the mollusk it pulled from the shell behind him.)  And so goes the cycle of life in the wild.  Nature is pretty amazing.  Happy Saturday!

Seashells Galore

Wow -- look at all those seashells! The shelling is always good on Sanibel. But, it was especially terrific last weekend after Tropical Storm Andrea breezed by the island. The storm brought lots of rain...and then lots of shells. These are Florida fighting conchs (strombus alatus), a warm water sea snail.  They were all over the beach early Saturday morning. But, they weren't just pretty shells for a  beachcomber to collect.  They were homes.  And, the mollusks living inside, were wiggling out of their shells onto the warm sand.  Seeing that left me in a quandary. What to do?  Reunite these creatures with the Gulf of Mexico or let Mother Nature have her way? After helping a few return to the sea, I quickly realized I was outnumbered and opted for the photo opps instead.  The New York Times published a good article last summer about shelling on Sanibel.  Click here to check it out.  Hope everyone has been doing well!

NO Oil Here!

There is NO oil on the beaches in Sarasota!  None.  Zip.  Zero.  Zilch.  In fact, there's no oil on any beaches anywhere in Florida.  Unfortunately, all the attention with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is giving some tourists the wrong idea.  I took this photo early this evening on Lido Beach.  People were having a great time sunbathing, wading along the shoreline and collecting seashells  -- with no oil in the water.   I sure enjoyed the evening getting my toes wet!  To keep tabs on the daily beach conditions in the Sarasota area, check out Mote Marine Laboratory's online beach report  -- it's great.