Today I saw a juvenile Herring Gull doing a little dance in the surf.  This "puddling" of his feet in the sand forces little coquina clams or mole crabs to the surface, where he can eat them.  I have also seen a Ring-Billed Gull do this little surf dance.

The Seahorse is one of our favorite places to eat in Pass-a-Grille.  The tables have all kinds of interesting news and magazine clippings and photographs laminated into the top, so you can learn something about the area while you eat.  Last week while we were there for lunch I read that gulls have been known to actually perch on a pelican's head to try and steal his fish!  I had never seen that happen, and I didn't really believe it.

Well... after this afternoon, I believe it!

Two Laughing Gulls were harrassing this poor pelican, following him every time he made his dive.  I don't think they ever actually got his fish, but they certainly were bothering him, and you could tell he was keeping an eye on them.

Here is a video:

Pelicans are fascinating to watch.  They are large birds, and seem so awkward and ungainly.  But watch them fish and you will realize they're very good at what they do!

A pelican's head goes all the way underwater to catch the fish...

Powerful wings help the pelican take off from the water.
The Brown Pelican's wingspan is 6-8 feet.

Today I found the claw of a blue crab, and it got me thinking.  Did I have shells in every color of the rainbow?  I decided to try and make a "beach color wheel".

I had to cheat a little, because really I only had the one blue crab claw.  So I threw in some blue and green sea glass as well.  I did have a green shell--maybe that's algae on there, I'm not sure.  There are plenty of reddish-orange and orange shells, I find orange jingles all the time.  And orange scallops.  The purple shell at the top I've only ever found one of, and I'm still trying to figure out what it is.

Note: I have since discovered that the purple shell is a Delphinula, or Dolphin shell!

Yesterday it rained and stormed all day.  Today the sun is out but it is extremely windy.  At the beach the surf was rough and brown from all the churned up sand.

  I saw a few shark eye egg collars, which look for all the world like a plastic ring made by man!

These collars tend to turn up after a storm, when the seas are rough.  Shark eye snails, or moon snails, lay their eggs in these collar shapes, which consist of mucus and sand.  I have never seen a live shark eye snail, but have found many shark eye shells, in many sizes.

This snail is a predator, boring a beveled hole in other shells to eat the occupant.  The upside-down shark eye shell on the far right shows that these snails have no problem eating fellow shark eye snails!

One of the biggest shells I find on our beach is the Florida Fighting Conch (which is around 3 inches long).  The empty shells are often damaged in some way, but every now and then I find a nice one.

If I find one with the snail still inside, I leave it alone.  Or, if it is far from the water, sometimes I help the snail out and throw him back in.

Fighting conch with snout and eyes extended

You often find this sea snail stranded on the beach at low tide, trying to flip itself over with the sharp spike on its foot.



It also uses this spike to defend itself.  And, when the snail is fully retracted into its shell, the spike becomes a little door, neatly shutting intruders out.

The snail has a long snout, with which it gathers food, and eyes which are on stalks.  You can see the snout and eyes in this video:



Here is a snail that has got it right; it is mostly submerged in the sand, staying nice and moist until the tide comes in again.

Okay, more things that don't belong on the beach.

The worst: styrofoam, which never goes away, just gets smaller and smaller.

And of course plastic items of various kinds...

A few plastic straws as well.

Finally, some old bottles.  One of them has been in the ocean for awhile.  It is encrusted with barnacles.

Let's throw our garbage in the bin, not on the beach!

There has been a lot of sand-sculpting on the beach since my post in May 2014 on sand creations.  In January I spotted a delightful little sand-man:

And recently there has been a large variety of sand castles:

Your basic castle keep,
with servant quarters...

A triple-towered castle...

Triple-tower deluxe with extra fortifications and moat...

A sand fortress complete with flagpole...

and a sand burial mound.

Someone was left behind to stand guard...

A very ambitious project!

Then of course we have a couple of mermaids:

A very relaxed mermaid with lovely seaweed hair...

and an elaborate mermaid/dolphin combo, with central pool...

The dolphin mermaid has long flowing tresses...

And next we have my personal favorite, the sand-turtle:

 

Oh, and in a class by itself, a wet-sand-dribbled mountain:

Well done, everyone!

Yesterday was a hot sunny day, and it was a Sunday.  Therefore, there were crowds.

In spite of the crowds, however, there was also...

...a Great Blue Heron

He didn't seem to know what to make of all the people, but he stood his ground.

Notice the strong, sharp beak, which is perfect for catching fish.

And here is a video:

"

If you look closely you'll notice little holes here and there on the beach, with little bits of sand and whatnot near them, like this. These holes are the burrows of Ghost Crabs (also known as Sand Crabs).  You don't usually see the actual crab, because by the time you've spotted the little hole, the crab has long since spotted you and zipped inside. These crabs are very small and quick, and they match the color of the sand exactly.

Can you spot the crab?

Here is a video of a Ghost Crab at its burrow.  My apologies for the wobbly camera-work; I'm zoomed all the way in so as not to scare the crab away.

Thank you David for composing the music for my video!

Now that we've set the clocks forward we can start going down to watch the sunset after dinner.  The sunset this evening was wonderful.

The water was like an abstract painting.

I went down to the beach early this morning--well, early-ish.  I was hoping to see more interesting birds, like the spoonbills I saw once before when I went to the beach early.  The wind was blowing fairly briskly and it was cold (at least, it felt cold to me: it was in the low fifties).  There were no spoonbills, but a couple in wedding garb were having their pictures taken.

Nice dress but she must've been very cold (the photographer is wearing a jacket with the hood up)! There are a lot of weddings on our beach.  On most nice weekends you'll see a be-ribboned arch somewhere on the beach, white folding chairs set in rows, flowers.  Of course, with a beach wedding you can't predict what the weather will be like, or how windy it will be.

Another beautiful day.  I don't know why this happens, but some days you find more of one particular kind of shell, and today I found a lot of one of my favorites, the comb bittersweet clam.  Usually I find one or two, but today I found over 30!

I like how each one is unique, each pattern different; even the tiniest shell has its own individual design. Beautiful things are not always symmetrical, predictable. And often even what is not "beautiful" can still amaze and impress us.  As I reflected on this I thought of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem, "Pied Beauty."

GLORY be to God for dappled things—

  For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

    For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

  Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;

    And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

  Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

    With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

                  Praise him.

Very windy again today, but sunny and warm.  The wind was blowing the sand into patterns:

The wind also stirs up the sea oats which grow on the sand dunes.  The trailing tips of the sea oat grasses blow back and forth in the sand, leaving interesting little patterns.  There may also be some little creature footprints mixed in there, as well as ghost crab tracks.