February in August . . .

. . . Another glorious sunrise over the Atlantic, in Feb., the coldest month of the year here in NE Florida. And I do mean cold . . . during one beach visit, my feet were so painfully numb I had to cut the time there short. But the sunrises are worth it!

I continued to find interesting calico scallops in Feb. Above, this scallop has acorn barnacles attached. The gray and yellow one below, was an especially unique find . . .

I found my second common nutmeg shell! Don't let the photo fool you, they only reach a max of 1.7" (4.5 cm)

I thought this was a "turkey wing" ark, but it's a red-brown ark. I only have one turkey wing, from the Gulf Coast. I have about 3 of these red-browns, compared to zillions of the incongruous arks. There are actually 10 types of arks found in Florida.

This royal starfish was growing an arm back . . .

I know it's sad to see a dead sea creature, but I was also fascinated to see a puffer fish on the beach. This is a Spiny Box Puffer, or Striped Burrfish.

I found a mostly buried sand dollar . . . and was surprised that it was a whole one!

Ring-billed gulls were hanging out one morning . . .

As were these herring gulls . . . (note pale pink legs) . . . only seen in winter here.

Royal terns are seen year-round, but it's more fun to see their 'do in winter. The "Florida's Living Beaches" ID book actually notes that "Royal terns shun 'the comb-over' " !

The Forster's terns were chillin' too . . . note the black mottled crown above the eye patch ~ in late winter, their heads darken from masks to caps.

This ruddy turnstone's plumage is transitioning from breeding to winter colors. Ruddies winter along most of Florida's coastlines, but they live year-round along the panhandle coast.

January in July

....Now it's been QUITE awhile since I last posted, seven months in fact...so I'm going back to the beginning of 2016, re-starting where I left off... when the beach-combing is at its best no less...

I thought this looked really amazing, a feather floating w/ two water drops on it. (I did not put the droplets there!)

This is one beauty we do not touch!

This was the first Portuguese man-o-war I'd ever seen with its tentacles intact!

A very blustery morning on the beach...

The sand was blowing up the beach in streaks...

A January sunrise over the Atlantic . . .

I still go to the beach right before sunrise . . .

I found some more whole whelks . . .

(Above, knobbed whelk)

...And one Giant Eastern Murex piece . . .

This shark's eye was a deep taupe w/ black markings . . .

Finding whole whelks never gets old  . . . . .

The endless patterns of calico scallops never cease to entertain . . .

...And finding sea urchin tests is still a fairly rare treat!

A Bird's-Eye View . . .

Who doesn't love wading in the salty water, watching the waves roll in . . . I'm pretty sure this was an immature reddish egret .

An osprey discovered the perch I've also seen a bald eagle atop in weeks past . . . on the Intracoastal side of Matanzas Inlet . . .

. . . It was a dark and stormy morning . . .

Not many seashell finds, but this scallop was the most strongly patterned one I've found on this particular beach.

A Semele Sunrise

Looks like I'm only getting beach therapy one day this week . . .

Another red sunrise on Tuesday . . .

Some shells, esp. some bivalves, are hard to ID but I'm pretty sure this is a (not-so)-White Atlantic Semele.  It just happens to have some discoloration due to being buried.

This tiny almost-whole gastropod shell is a thick-lipped drill. Their max. size is 1.5 in.

Another nice shark's eye was found, sitting in some shell hash . . .

And I found a good-sized Atlantic calico scallop, along with a few smaller ones.

Seeing Red

It wasn't my best couple hours of beach therapy this morning, but nice all the same, and full of reds . . .

. . . Like the sunrise . . . in an otherwise dark horizon . . . it didn't seem this sinister in real life!

I found another calico scallop with an acorn barnacle attached . . .

On the Intracoastal Waterway side, this reddish egret flew in and landed out in the shallows . . . This is the first reddish egret I've seen since living in NE Florida 3 years . . . too bad I didn't have my SLR camera with me . . .

Another shapely piece of a whelk shell . . . even though I'd prefer to find a whole whelk, the curly pieces definitely have their own unique beauty.

A Changing Sunrise and Other Treasures

Another pleasant beach therapy session was procured on Tues. I arrived a bit earlier than usual, and it was a little too dark to see what was under foot very well…at first. But then, I was on a mission to reach the shell "hot spots" before anyone else did. It's summer now, and the tourists are showing up at the condos just north of my favorite beach-combing beach. I was first in line this day, however . . .

The pre-sunrise skyline was awe-inspiring, as usual . . .

I actually didn't find hardly anything on my way down the beach along the water's edge,

but on my way back, I walked the high tide line and found this lightning venus shell (a first!)

I've found several favored tellin shells, but not like this beige-ringed one.

Normally they're white. So, another first of sorts!

Once the sun was above the horizon, the colors changed notably . . .

I never tire of finding Atlantic calico scallop shells…esp. ones with barnacles attached…

Look closely, the two barnacles on the left are striped acorn barnacles (white with purple
stripes), and the one on the right is a rock acorn barnacle (solid purplish-reddish).

I found two very nice, good-sized shark's eye shells . . . this one was covered in sand

and I almost didn't see it . . .

At one point I did go back to the water's edge on my way back up the beach . . . and found two little hermit crabs cruising along near one another . . . this little guy stopped and went into his shell when I neared for a photo . . . I didn't realize until I cropped the photo, that I'd had two beady little crab eyes keeping a close eye on me!