Virtual Beach Walk + Beach Combing + Shelling + Finding Beach Critters. Come on a beach walk with me

Well hi there beach friends. Today we're going to go on a lovely beach walk. We're going to have some critter encounters. We're going to find some shells including a shell I've never seen before. Welcome to another SWF Beach Life video. If you like shelling and critters and just the beach in general, I do recommend you hit that subscribe button and that notification bell because I bring you a new video every week. Here we are at South Fort Myers Beach, one of my go-to shelling places. Looks like a nice clear water day so hopefully we'll do pretty well. I'm gonna start off on the beach though with this lightning welk. Happy little olive. What do we got here? A five hole keyhole sand dollar. Now I'm checking to see if this guy's alive and I can't really tell so whenever in question that guy's got to go back in the water so back he goes. And here we have a juvenile Florida fighting conch. All right this guy stumped me. I believe this is a tinted cantharis although I'm not sure because it looks just like an Atlantic oyster drill or a chestnut laterus so this can be quite confusing. What do we got here? Ooh, an alphabet cone. All right, not in the best shape ever but still really cool. Guys, all right, I just learned about this. This is a knobless Florida fighting conch. See how it doesn't really have a lot of knobs going on there? It's kind of smoothed out. Yep, it's like this guy which has lots of knobs but it's knobless so I thought that was fascinating. Thank you for everyone who was telling me about that. Really cool stuff. We have a lettered olive complete with this little top. Check this guy out. Never seen one before. This is a Cuban brown snail. It looks a lot like a moon snail but it's not and I thought that was pretty cool. Never seen one of those before. And check this out. This big old crown conch. Beautiful color. Lots of spikes. Relatively big. That's a fabulous find. So here we are enjoying the lovely day. I'm chasing those birds. Not really but they're funny. All right, here we have another juvenile Florida fighting conch. Oh, a critter. Critter alert. It's a Florida fighting conch. It's another one of those knobless ones. Look how pointy. It's kind of missing those knobs we talked about earlier but there's a critter. I think this little guy is shy so let's take a peek and then we'll let him be. And here's another Florida fighting conch. It acts gorgeous. Nice and knobby. I like that blondish color. Super pretty. Another lettered olive. Lovely. Oh, this guy's broken but here's a little nutmeg and I don't mind because I like seeing that spiral. Okay, this guy. This is rather boring if you ask me but I don't usually pick them up. I'm pretty sure this is a cut ribbed arc. Different. Nice and clear. Just kind of walk along. See what you spot. And here we have another critter alert. Now let's take a little bit closer look. Here we have some bottlenose dolphins and they are just having a good old time out there. You'll see some people on jet skis. Got a great seat for the little show. These guys are very common down here. The males will grow to over 12 feet long and can grow up to 1,400 pounds so those guys can get quite large. Oh, looks like we have a deposit of some moon snails. Also shark eyes. That first and third one and look at that middle guy. That's a colorful moon snail or a gorynautica. Here we have a juvenile Florida fighting conch and a pear whelk. This is a lightning whelk. And another lightning whelk. This guy's got a little bit better coloring going on on the front there. Pretty. And this guy's a little bigger. Color is a little faded. He's a little beat up, but that's all right. Speaking of beat up, this poor sand dollar. I still kind of like it though. It's like rustic. Now this is clearly super beat up, right? But look at the coloring. That zigzag. Oh, I thought that was neat. Very barnacled up, but I love that pattern on the shell. So he was a keeper. And this guy, super knobby Florida fighting conch. Oh, nice dark brown lightning whelk. And we've managed to get down toward the southern end of the island and here we have a whole bunch of skimmers. Some other birds or some terns are also in there, but those skimmers are fascinating. I am still waiting to see if I can actually get video of them doing their skimming thing and as soon as I do, I'll bring it right to you. Here we have a little owl, wee little guy. And as I was admiring him, I spotted this. There's another juvenile Florida fighting conch. All right, and here, this was kind of a fun moment. You pick up the shell and you're like, awesome! And then you're like, critter! Yay! But I really wanted the shell, but let's just take a closer look. This is a banded tulip. As you see, he does have his operculum and I found interesting as a guy is kind of coming out of his shell instead of tucking himself back in there. These guys are scavengers and carnivores. So they will eat a variety of prey, including small snails, bivalves, tube worms, and true tulips will even eat banded tulips. So it is truly a snail eat snail world. All right, we've checked him out. We're just going to put him back and let him get nice and big. And oh man, this would have been fabulous. That is a busted up shark eye. And this guys, I just wanted to show you, this is a half naked pen shell. So those pretty iridescent pieces come from something that looks like that. Okay, this was also, see this guy kind of buried, it's kind of bigger. So I assumed it was alive. So I'm going to be kind of careful as I get him out of the sand. So I'm kind of just clearing the sand away and what? It's empty? Yay! Nobody home, no hermit crabs. Oh, I was very excited. That's a nice little lightning welcome. And then here we are at the very south end. You'll see the bridge between Estero Island and Lover's Key. That's Lover's Key there. People out enjoying the water. And then here we have a kitten paw. This is kind of weird. I don't know what was going on there. Definitely a kitten paw, but it was just a kind of an unusual shape. Okay, so you also see, look at the quality of the water down here. It's much different. It's the water's turning a lot more because of all the boats. Look at that weird thing that kind of looks like a foot. It's not, it's just seapork. And I wanted to show you, don't get freaked out if you ever see something weird like that floating in the water. Here we have a calico clam. And what do we got here? Okay, it looks like a lightning whelk and a pear whelk. Although that guy's definitely seen better days. And you know what? Him too, actually. All right, so I spotted this goopy thing. I kind of just do a touch test and it feels like a sea hare. Although it was kind of like this little ball porth thing. But once I picked it up, I thought, yeah that's probably a sea hare. So I want to get that back in the water. Hopefully it can get revived and continue its sea hare life. Here we have a little olive. Beautiful little guy. Now speaking of beautiful, I think that's a golden olive, complete with his tip and everything. That is an awesome find. And these are the conditions as we're walking back. They were definitely shells. You can see them just kind of rolling around in the surf there. And here we have some cloudy periwinkles. These also are snails. They like to hang out by the water. Hey, that's my style too, guys. So you're in good company. And look, they're in the shade. Smart. Just kind of tucked in there. They're awesome. All right, here we have a scallop. Looks like a bay scallop. And look at this, the most encrusted moon snail I've ever seen. It's probably a shark eye, but it's super hard to tell. It's just completely covered. Here we have another lightning whelk. Kind of busted up, but that's all right. So guys, it is a little haul, but I thought it was really great. We found some great things today. Those lightning whelks, including that big lightning whelk, and that big crown conch, which was awesome. And then we have our Florida fighting conchs, that cool Cuban brown snail, the guardianauticas, those olives, including the golden olive, and the wee little ones. And it was just a really good day to be out in the water. Now this is the point of the video where I just start over and over thanking you for all your comments, all your time. I appreciate you watching the videos, giving me your feedback, and I really couldn't ask for anything more. So thank you, thank you, thank you. I will continue to bring you beachy goodness, as long as you guys continue to watch. So see you again next week.