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.

Today was an absolutely beautiful day.  Sunny and warm, with only the barest wisps of clouds in the sky.  And the water was so clear (no seaweed) and calm, and so much warmer than just a week or so ago (that is to say, not freezing).  Amazing.  It's spring in Florida!

I was not the only one enjoying the day.  I saw a group of Willets (a kind of sandpiper) dozing in the sunshine.  They like to stand on one leg for some reason.

Sometimes you find things on the beach that make you wonder.  The apple is understandable; someone finished eating and just threw it down on the beach.  The same goes for the orange (except that someone forgot to eat it).  Fruit makes a great snack to take along for a day at the beach.  But an entire bunch of celery?  An onion?

What a windy day!  The wind was so strong it blew all the fog away.  It also forced a lot of the shorebirds to hunker down in the sand.  I think the two large speckled birds are juvenile Herring Gulls.  Royal Terns have orange beaks.  The black-headed bird is a Laughing Gull.

Here is a juvenile Herring Gull inspecting a bit of pen shell.  You can see the wind ruffling its feathers.  This is a big bird, the biggest gull on the beach.

It's hard to look your best on such a windy day!  This is a Ring-Billed Gull.

It was a little foggy today, though not as foggy as yesterday.  There was a lone pelican near the buoy line.

There weren't as many shells as yesterday.  I found three shark eyes, two jingles, a tiny cat's paw, an intact sunray (one side has a hole in it), a tooth-shaped object which I have found quite a few of (I'm not sure what it is), a piece of glass (not really beach glass, as it's not nicely smoothed-frosted, but any glass is rare on our beach so I pick it up), a comb bittersweet clam (also with a hole in it), a little bright orange horse conch, and an iridescent piece of pen shell.

I know I said, "No more shells!" but the ones with holes don't really count, as they are ear-marked for as yet unspecified craft projects.  And the jingles go straight in my jingle jar, so no harm done.  The tiny shark eye is going in my "tiny shells" collection.

This morning the beach was foggy, but not cold.  The Don CeSar was shrouded in a cloud, and only the incoming waves could be seen; the distant horizon was blank.  Only a few people were walking up and down--such a change from yesterday, when it was bright and sunny and the beach was packed with umbrellas and holiday-makers.

The sun may have been absent, but there were lots of shells.  My firm resolve to stop bringing more shells into the house was severely tested.  You can see how well I resisted temptation:

I found a grey scallop, an intact sunray, two lettered olives, a bit of purple sea-whip, a teeny-tiny sea urchin, a worm shell, a bit of sea glass, two shark eyes, a pale auger, a calico, several orange jingles (the photo doesn't do their color justice), a comb bittersweet clam, and some cat's paws.  But there were many, many other shells I did not pick up.  For the record.

Things that don't belong on the beach: