Shelling on Sanibel Island. Low tide treasures on an early morning beach walk.

good morning beach friends well it's silly early o'clock when i got to the beach to take advantage of low tide the last time i tried this walk i couldn't get through to blind pass but this time i was successful it's going to be a lovely beach walk and as always we're going to find some interesting things to check out so if you're ready for your weekly dose of beachy goodness let's go to the beach [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so i'm back at sanibel this is bowman's and i am going to do the bowman's to blind pass walk wanted to get to the beach as early as i could i couldn't really get here too much earlier because it would have been dark out so i'm trying to catch the low tide at 7 24 and currently it's about 7 15 so you know i wish i could have been here a little longer but it was dark so it's fine i'm gonna catch a little bit of the low tide and it'll be out for a little while it is 73 degrees out it's just lovely and a nice morning to be out hunting for goodies on the beach so i always hit the water just kind of see what's in the water is there anything good rolling around or just the typical common shells and then maybe take a peek at the beach and see what's there so behind me the sun is coming up beautiful and we got a little smattering here of different things let's take a peek and see what's here all right there's a little surf clam bunch of the arks the crossbar venus oh there is a little calico scallop so there's some pieces some whole things always you know you're always going to find the ponderous arcs some scallops lots of bivalves and a little jingle also known as a baby's foot these are a little a little little foot on the other side here's a kitten paw so there is some stuff here we're gonna keep it moving see if we can find something maybe something we've never seen before oh already turned stone one of our cute little shore birds poking around looking for a snack the sun is really kind of coming up and here's another little smattering of shells another surf clam and a yellow prickly cockle and a little little coquina also and here is a calico scallop and a bay scallop okay so we have a couple of bi valves here but what i really want to talk about are these guys so we have a base scallop on the left and a calico scallop on the right so from a shape standpoint they are somewhat similarly shaped however if you look at the ribs see here how the base scallop that's kind of very flat in that area where on the calico scallop it's a little more rounded so hope that helps a little bit kind of determining these guys from the color it's very easy but from a shape perspective these calico scallops have a lot more they're rounded ribs and not flat broad ribs like the bay scallop so that is another calico they are typically purple pink sometimes they'll have a little yellow and that is a calico clam another fun little show oh and a piece of horse conk nice pretty bright orange but got that little calico clam what else do we see here right there is another base scallop see how those ribs are kind of flat in between the indentations here's another little kitten's paw and your slippers and you know your your run-of-the-mill shells now that even though the color looks like a bay scallop i'm going to say that's a calico because it has those indentations and the ribs aren't really broad and flat like the bay scallop so definitely lots of shells here keep it moving though see oh see what else we can find that's interesting to look at that is another calico scallop but sometimes we'll have those like brights burst colors on it really pretty that's another calico rather ubiquitous here in sanibel you if you like scallops and you like pretty colorful ones head over to sanibel you almost always can find the pretty scallops there so i've talked about this a lot i do like to go early and especially early at low tide that is my absolute favorite if i can't hit low tide i will probably also still try to go early so don't let that dissuade you just definitely just go you never know i like to try to maximize my chances for us all that is another calico scallop and here is a giant atlantic cockle so you cannot see how clean it is probably going to keep that feller or gal looks like it had a growth spurt at some point oh here's another weird colored shell that is not the right color that is a calico oh wait a minute let's look at the ribs on it nope that's a base scallop a discolored base scallop cool oh and a critter see a little jumble of shells there that's one of the short spined sea urchins i typically don't see them over here in sanibel but i guess because it was kind of low tide i was able to spy this fun little creature that also likes collecting shells making it very endearing to me so we'll just take a peek let that little critter finish whatever it was doing what do we got here something colorful okay super beat up florida fighting but it's got some hitchhikers check that out so that is actually two slipper snails there's one slipper snail on top of another slipper snail on top of a florida fighting conk so that is technically alive probably wouldn't have kept it anyway but anything living needs to go back in the water oh here's something else living let's just say hi and here we have a small spire c star pretty little feller or gal they do have tube feet unlike the nine arm sea star which do not these guys do have little suckers on the end of their little feet and they will stick themselves onto things and it's a big old prickly cockle nice rough edges on that shell the pretty interior color a prickly taco and what do we got something orange oh a piece all right orange was a florida fighting conch looks pretty pretty standard nothing really special about that one all right that one's all busted up so i kind of found this patch and the water was very very clear very shallow so i'm just kind of rooting around here see if i see anything exposed and just to be sure yes it is still a lovely morning and here is a crab that clearly wants nothing to do with me doing a pretty good job of running away and another calico scallop with a bunch of hitch hikers so those are barnacles just a little reading about barnacles hopefully i can find some live ones at some point in the future stuck and we can talk about those a little bit more yeah that's just a piece i was hoping there would be a shell attached to that piece but just a piece of a lightning walk oh yep scallops calico scallops some pretty colors oh and a sand dollar although i think it might be broken yeah oh man all right so we have the sand dollars down here the five whole keyhole sand dollars that one happens to be missing the center of it i wonder if a bird did that but either way i'm going to leave it i'm not going to keep that so the sun is slowly starting to come up and i'm not walking all that fast i'm really trying not to miss anything so i'm going to kind of zigzag back and forth take a peek up here on the beach i've been in the water for a little bit just to see right so this looks relatively undisturbed it doesn't look like anybody else was here so i'm kind of getting first crack at the stuff all right we have a buttercup leucine and your cross barred venus always always there i mean there's nothing they're just so common i don't really collect them that one's kind of neat though kind of got some patterns on there there is another calico scallop butterfingers and another all right check out yeah that's a keeper so still huh and most of the most of the things i'm finding are these dye valves like this sunray venus clam cool though nice and big yep relatively clean i'll just rinse that off you have a nice big old sunray venus clam and an olive okay our first olive of the day not super pointy but probably gonna keep it anyway and that's a juvenile florida fighting conch a little beat up i'll leave that for somebody else oh that's actually really pretty a calico clam i'll go ahead and keep that one do a quick scan see if there's anything else up another florida fighting conch oh that one's really pretty kind of glowing orange with the sun coming up oh yeah i'm going to keep that one very pretty florida fighting conk and a black scallop discolored of something let's see let's see if i can figure out that looks like a another base gallop another discolored base gallop oh i think a keeper and when i find sand dollars like this i push the sand underneath it and kind of push it up so i don't chip any of the edges once i rinse that off yay it's not perfect but it is really pretty so we're definitely keeping that sand dollar check this out another one of the scallops we might find here this is a rough scallop those you look at the bottom little pieces that kind of flare off they're usually not congruent they're usually different sizes i just used the word congruent okay back to shells and another calico oh a pretty orange one and i've gotten to enjoy a lot of the beach this morning so it's now your beach time all right what else all right a quahog another bivalve just a run-of-the-mill sturdy shell and i see some color here oh another bay scallop kind of rounded but it's orange probably gonna keep it oh look at that i thought the color on that was just awesome so that is another one of the calico scallops quite a bit bigger than some of the other ones i'm finding and super pretty and another olive not so lettery but an olive nonetheless all right oh getting a couple things here all right another yellow prickly cockle and another bay scallop good day for my valves and here we have one of our little snowy egrets so this is the point you see that the tide is low if it were higher i'd have a rough time kind of getting through here but it's low enough no problem so i'm gonna make a note just to make sure in the future that i don't get tied up here but i am able to pass now take a look at this shell pile you can see that their people have actually gone through and kind of scooped so i am not the first one taking a crack here at this pile people have definitely been here before me oh let's just take a peek at this giant lightning walk it's all rather beat up so i still check them out because it's not like everybody always finds every single desirable shell that will be there but i'm you know in the back of my head i already know that someone has kind of been through this pile before so the chances aren't great but i still like to stop and at least give it a quick scan just in case like here just in case maybe those other people weren't in the market for a little florida fighting so i'll go ahead and take that lots of the common stuff like this but i wanted i was looking for a shell with a hole in it because i wanted to do that i wanted to do a little decorating while i was here add to this little little tree branch with some shells on it all right so you can really kind of see how it's been gone through you can see how people have definitely been here so just so you know be aware people have been here before just know maybe some of the good stuff has already been removed but you never know what other people are searching for right so i like to just take a peek and then keep it moving oh bummer all right so that is a banded tulip that has clearly seen better days so i'm not gonna keep that oh but that i'm gonna keep that is a lady in waiting venus clam shell very fancy name for this little clam okay and that is a giant atlantic cockle but that's just one that's just a little one so that is a little giant atlantic cockle and this i thought was weird it looked like somebody had scooped and then just kind of dumped this pile because it was weird for these shells to kind of just be sitting here like this so of course i had to take a peek and hey what do we got here so whether or not those shells were left by someone i don't know but it sure looked like it and i liked that shark eye so after checking everything else out i decided i was i'd keep that shark eye maybe somebody else rejected it but i think it's kind of cool kind of got like a candy stripe swirl going on so i'm gonna keep that shark eye all right what do we got oh oh pretty florida fighting conch oh it's kind of got that dark color oh it's got some chips in it and i don't care i'm going to keep it soak that in bleach it'll be lovely oh here's another one that's a little discolored it is a juvenile floor defining conch probably not gonna keep that oh i got grabby look what i got a banded tulip okay look at the aperture is even almost intact pretty cool got ourselves finally a gastropod we finally got a whole shell not a bivalve so i found this spot i like shelling this spot where the shoreline kind of dips down so it's a little bit higher where the waves are and then it dips down because i kind of feel like shells will get trapped there so i'm kind of the area i'm kind of walking just looking to see if there's anything kind of stuck in the water and it looks like i did get a little lucky so here we have a lightning milk nice color nice size oh it's little nothing wrong it's a fine sized lightning welk shell but we managed to get another gastropod and i see another florida fighting conquer rolling around oh oh that's so pretty all right it definitely has some stuff on the inside but i got myself a new dental pick so i'm gonna keep that and another lettered olive it's missing its point but it is a little more lettery than that one we found earlier cool another lightning well this one's a little bit more worn down a little bit smoother than that other one we picked up but still cool find another one oh and that one's that's a nice size nice dark color oh very cool all right starting to pick up a little bit got ourselves a decent lightning milk and there's blind pass so that that's where we're headed all right not surprising another calico scallop a little bit of beach stuff on it and i made it this time i was able to make it all the way to blind pass so here we are this is the very very northern tip of sanibel island beach called blind pass very popular with shellers very popular with fisher people and you can see in the distance there on the left there's other people out there because there's a couple of sand bars so at this point the tide has been coming in for a while yep there's a couple more shellers but across the beach there that's turner beach and that's technically captiva but we are here on sanibel now don't worry we're gonna go to captiva really soon we'll go check that out but today we have to finish our sanibel beach walk see what else we can find another pretty pink calico scallop good day for scallops oh and a little juvenile florida fighting conch so i like them i just yeah i got a problem with i got a shell problem i got a shell problem and this was kind of fun this is just like a bait ball so it's just this little cluster of tiny fish that were kind of freaking out i don't know if there was anything underneath them kind of agitating them maybe something was hunting them but they were super duper active kind of fun so i did what i could do a blind pass and now i'm gonna head back the way we came but for whatever reason even though i've already shelled the beach and everything i still managed to find stuff so that's what i'm saying about going don't worry about the tide so much if you can time it great but if not just go just go and have yourself some fun all right i see something rolling around an apple murax okay cool at least we got one of those today it's got a little bit of beach stuff on it but that's okay that is just fine and some other shellers it's getting to be that time of year i don't get the beach to myself but that's also kind of you know i like when people come and enjoy themselves at the beach so i don't mind sharing all right looks like i saw something i got grabby nope i thought for sure i had grabbed it so try it again see if i got it this time and i actually tried a couple times before it was successful so i did finally it was the color that drew my eye to this crowned conch so it took me quite a while but i was determined and i was victorious for this little tiny kind of worn down although rather pretty crown kong so this was actually the spot where i got completely stuck last time i came out of the woods through there i was trailblazing fighting the mosquitoes off it was pretty miserable and uh yeah that's if the tide is too high so it's starting to come in so it's gonna get iffy in a couple hours you're not gonna be able to walk through there so that's another reason i wanted to kind of hoof it back to bowman's beach and that is another giant atlantic cockle this one's a little more giant than the small one we found so just moseying along enjoying the day i love the beach and a florida fighting conch all right just check you know the color the knobs is it slimy does it have stuff on it that one's passable definitely going to keep that oh all right definitely feels like it's picking up now nice letter to olive a little bit lettery i'm assuming it's shiny well it looks shiny so probably a keeper and this i thought was super duper cool okay so this guy i don't find often that is a sharp ribbed drill they're tiny they only get to be a little bit tinier than an inch so they're not going to get big at all and they're kind of flat on the one side so i just think that was very very cool a sharp ribbed drill what else we got all right kitten paw don't know why i felt compelled to pick up some kitten paws but i guess i did it's been a little while i haven't paid attention to them in probably a few weeks figured why not pick up some kitten paws of course in this mix you're gonna have your jingles your arcs your slippers another kitten paw all sorts of shells it's too bad the ponderous ark isn't my favorite shell i'd go bananas every single time i went to the beach now that's kind of cool now this is a variable worm shell so that started out as a whole cluster of worms and they make these kind of cool reddish twirly shell looking things i've picked them up before it's been a little while look at these so those are barnacles barnacles do need to attach to a pen shell so they decided a pen shell was a good idea and it looks for a while that they were doing pretty okay but they do need to live in the water they filter feed so those guys even though looks like there's something in there they are most likely expired i see a piece of glass and that garbage not sea glass as i would think it would be not frosted not really rounded another pretty calico scallop for those of you who like scallops like me oh and a couple more and that one purple one with the burst but the yellow burst that's kind of different usually it's reverse so those are two pretty calico scallops oh no buddy i wondered if this was the same little critter that we found earlier that little guy got washed up on the beach so make sure this poor poor little guy get it back into the water and try to get to the point where it's not gonna wash back up again because the tide is coming in so try to get them out beyond the surf there hopefully they can stay in the water now that ponderous arc on the top that's what i was just saying which that was my favorite on the bottom there that is a cut ribbed ark i think the cut rib dark they're very very common but i just think they're so cool so these are two extremely common shells the cut ribbed arc and the ponderous arc and the pondrest ark also will have this black periostricum on it so that's another way you'll see those shells the white with the black on them another one of those rough scallops oh dear the bottom's broken but that's okay it's kind of pretty color i'll use that in a project we'll keep that so the sun has been up been out here for a little while at this point a little bit slow it's gonna get better and better as the weeks progress and as the winter comes so for now i'll just enjoy for the most part having the beach to myself and a couple of these fine shells that i find now i know the color on this one says calico but the shape is telling me bay scallop oh and a little lumpy jewel box it's technically a spiny jewel box however when the spines are all kind of ground down like that i just call it lumpy and another one of those rough scallops and another calico scallop very cool and a turkey wing all right haven't seen one of those all day something different okay cool i like those tricky wings and a big old chunk of a thin finger coral i don't usually find them as intact as this with another little piece attached so i think that's kind of cool and look a critter there's been a lot of calicos today this is a calico box crab it's front little pinchers kind of just tuck right underneath it it is alive and well didn't feel like i needed to pick it up we can see it pretty good just the way it is so i left it where it was just wanted to admire it so pretty very pretty little calico box crab now up ahead i started to see some umbrellas and people so i know i am approaching the entrance to bowman's and so i know that it's probably about time for me to go and for whatever reason i was just having so much fun i loved being out there so it was really hard to kind of tear myself away but unfortunately that's the way it rolls can't stay at the beach all day so that's me just like getting my last look at the beach before i leave and look you know we didn't do too bad tons of the scallops we knew that we'll start up here okay we got those giant atlantic cockles a yellow prickly cockle a buttercup lucine a sunray venus a bunch of those scallops both bad and rough they're all kind of mixed in there a couple of olives a jingle um we have the apple murex the kitten paws the banded tulip the crown conch couple the florida fighting couple lightning whelks that cool shark eye got one of those sand dollars and that cool sharp rib drill those are my favorites and a piece of coral so all in all not too shabby but it's just going to keep getting better and better so next week we are headed to captiva there was a bunch of storms here and i'll tell you all about it next week i find over a hundred chestnut turbans crazy so thank you patreons thank you viewers thank all of you for coming along with me i hope you have a great week and i'll see you again next sunday