The tides have taken some of the sand that normally covers these slabs* at the lighthouse beach on Sanibel. We were so surprised to see those pieces of concrete showing so much and that we haven’t been finding bigger shells lately. So we search for minis. I did find a MAUVE-MOUTH DRILL along with some other cuties that you probably already know. Can you pick out the MUAVE MOUTH DRILL?
If you couldn’t figure the others out, go to SEASHELL IDENTIFICATION but the one in the middle of this next picture is the MAUVE-MOUTH DRILL (I don’t have that on the I.D. page yet) ….
There were other mini collectors on the beach in between rain storms last night….
Eileen from Gainsville, FL was looking for NUTMEGS. Can you tell she like NUTMEGS? Hint- the beautiful bracelet!
I almost reached down to snag this little “candy” out of Dana’s (came down from Gainsville with Eileen) pile until I realized it was her stash ;)….
A few days ago, I met a few Shelling Sisters from Nova Scotia that I could have spent the whole day with. Clark and I had a wonderful trip to Nova Scotia in 2005 so I was able to reminisce and visualize all of the places they mentioned and was so intrigued with their rich Mi’kmaq culture.
It was so much fun reminiscing about Nova Scotia, I remembered a photo I took of our shells we found on a little island south of Yarmouth… called Clark’s Harbour. haha Of course, right?
Even in 2005, I was taking pictures of our treasures.
* I’ve had a few people comment about those concrete slabs on the beach at the lighthouse since I posted these photos. There were a few other structures in the early 1900s that were washed away by storms. You can read about the Sanibel Lighthouse in these wonderful books…
The Nova Scotia shells look like dogwinkles, aka Dog whelks. I find dogwinkles here in Massachusetts.. if I’m lucky!
I find dogwinkles…in orange…in Rockport, Mass in abundance…in a hidden cove called Loblolly. The shelling is so different because in the middle is always seaglass or chards of pottery from ships sinking nearby. Love this post!
I just added better photos of the Nova Scotia shells so you guys could get a better look. It looks like a few are dogwinkles (thanks for the I.D. Bird and Mls!) but it looks like there is another type in there too.
Nice to hear that there are shells to find in Nova Scotia! We want to go on vacaion there for years… but we always end up in FL ;-))
We shellers are a global community making the world a better place one shell at a time.
I’m travelling to Newfoundland and Labrador next week–so I’ll let you know what kind of shells I find.
I’ve never seen those slabs at Lighthouse. Were they the base for another structure that was there? Maybe I’ll have to look for them at low tide in October. Of course, by then they could have another foot of sand on them!!
I too found these Nova Scotia shells in Massachusetts this May, on Plum Island, Mass. So glad to find out the name of them. My daughters and I collected dozens of them in a matter of minutes. They were washing up everywhere. Thanks so much for the info!!!!!!!!!
I didn’t know about the slabs by the lighthouse. Do you know any more about them? That reminds me of the rocks by beach access #7.
Love those little mini’s.
Lee
You guys are not going to beileve this……I had a dream last night that I was on the beach at Sanibel (nothing unusual there – I’m sure we all dream of Sanibel)
But as I was walking the beach I came accross someone’s set up with a beautiful glass bottle filled with shells. Then I saw several containers filled with sorted shells (remember the tweezer sistah’s) and I looked up on a deck and saw several ladies eating lunch and across the deck railing they were drying their “iloveshelling” aqua t-shirts! I call out to them and we start waving at each other and then I wake up darn it. LOL
So funny! That was me waving at you! LOL Dreaming in aqua.
Pam – it was wonderful to meet you and if you ever get back to Nova Scotia I can tell you where you can find moose on the beach at Cape Breton Island.
We also have clams, razor clams, mussels, oysters, scallop shells and lovely large moon snails. The only shell we share with Sanibel is the Atlantic Slipper. I wish we had more like the beautiful Sanibel shells.
FYI- I added some more info on the slabs of concrete in the photo on this post. I haven’t read the books yet but I posted some titles if you’d like more info on the lighthouse structures. I might go talk to Charles this weekend to get more scoop.
Ahhh… The other Nova Scotia shell–the brown, kind of striped, ones–are common periwinkles.
What are labelled as dogwinkles are mostly periwinkle shells.
in the last photo, are the shells on the right periwinkles? and on the left dogwinkles?