Sea Treasure Finds...

When I decided to make the effort to get beach therapy on a weekly basis (as much as humanly possible)…I started out visiting N. Peninsula Beach, which is just south of Flagler Beach. It's a nice enough beach, esp. since almost no one goes there, but the bounty from beach-combing isn't the greatest. The best seashells are on the W. coast of Florida, but I still manage to find plenty of interesting, attractive shells and other neat sea treasures….

Sunrise at N. Peninsula Beach…by the light of the silvery…sun…

I always head for the beach around sunrise...

Nature creates plenty of lovely shell pendants…

esp. ark shells in my beachy part of the world…

in white, orange, brown, and black...

The ocean breeze can leave these pretty ripples in the coquina sand...

…A sanderling taking a morning bath…

I'd never witnessed this before…

They're usually busy fishing for breakfast...

 Not good photos, but you can see that this is a Florida scrub jay…

They live in the sandy, scrubby terrain of N. Peninsula State Park…

Which lies between the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway.

 Ghost crabs are plentiful along our beaches…

I had two startle me while I was busy scanning the high tide wrack…

The cannonball jellyfish wash ashore by the dozens in late winter…

…An angelwing shell…

There are a lot of feathers washed ashore…

This was the first raptor feather I've seen…

No clue if it's an osprey's but they fish the Atlantic

daily and can be seen most visits to the beach...

I've seen a couple of these spider crabs…

Thank goodness they're small! Yeesh!

I also made a visit to the beach at Marineland, south of St. Augustine…

the area has the interesting coquina limestone formations…

…A couple laughing gulls chillin' in the morning light…

…I didn't find any exciting shells, but did find this brown sea cucumber…
I highly recommend not touching one if you see it…eeeek!