On Sanibel, the Easter Bunny doesn’t dye colorful egg shells… our Bunny brings colorful SCALLOP SHELLS that want to wish you an eggshellent Easter!
Just an FYI- I took the video during last week’s shell pile at Blind Pass Captiva.
On Sanibel, the Easter Bunny doesn’t dye colorful egg shells… our Bunny brings colorful SCALLOP SHELLS that want to wish you an eggshellent Easter!
Just an FYI- I took the video during last week’s shell pile at Blind Pass Captiva.
Haha adorable! It’s like they’re clapping!!
loved this&all the colorful scallops..have to admit my granddaughters love these the most because of the colors!
Incredible! Thanks for sharing.
Happy Easter!
How adorable is that?!
Last year was my first trip to Sanibel and I felt like I had whiplash from trying to look at everything and soak it in. I still take my shells out and marvel at their beauty.
I’ll be back in less that 2 weeks and can’t wait.
Love the yellow and orange scallops. I have found whole scallops on the beach, but they were dried out. Of course they were trying to move , but they weren’t in the water. Have a Happy Easter everyone. Pat
I was showing a live scallop to a child on the beach on Sanibel and it bit me! It slammed its shell closed so fast that it caught my flesh in it. I screamed and jumped and laughed. It really startled me that it could move so fast.
I always figured that the “Easter Pelican” brought us all of those colorful shells.
So beautiful, and I love the “clapping” scallops! Happy Easter Pam and Clark!
It is hard to resist picking up beautiful scallop shells on Sanibel because the colors are so amazing.
The live scallops that have washed up are flapping their valves together because they are attempting to swim away — flapping their valves together is how they swim through the water, using jet propulsion. But once they have been cast up onto the beach and are in the air, it doesn’t work.
Happy Easter! Love the Scallops. I have a question. Planning our first trip to Sanibel all because of you and this blog. I know that you can’t predict the tides or the weather or the shelling, but in your opinion, what is the best time of year to come? thanks! Excited. Janice Mazur
The one thing that certainly CAN be predicted is the tides. Pam has tide tables right here on her site (see the turquoise button at the top that says TIDES) and what you want to look for is exceptional low tides, in other words “minus” tides, where the number is preceded by a minus sign, and ideally you want minus tides that occur during the daylight hours, unless you are OK with night shelling.
The other thing to consider is what kind of temperatures you enjoy, since the hottest part of summer can be pretty hot in south Florida, and the coldest days during the winter can sometimes be a little too cool for shorts and tank top.
As for the impact of weather on the shelling, the more small storms come through the better the shelling will be, given a couple of days for the waves to calm down.
Thank you Susan for answering!
Thank you for the wonderful information.
You are welcome Janice. I reckon you will have a great time no matter when you come — it’s a beautiful island.
You’re very welcome Pam.
Oh and I noticed that you don’t seem to have a picture of a maculated baby’s ear on your seashell identification page.
Hi Pam,
Happy Easter. I just love seeing your videos I wish that you would do more.
Anyway reason for my message is that I will be visiting Sanibel in June. June 13 – 21 and I am wondering will you be doing one of your beach and shelling cruises any time during that week to Cayo Costa. I wish you would, I would love to go on one. I’m visiting Sanibel that week for my Birthday on the 19th.
Hope to see you on the beaches!
Julie
From, Fond du Lac, wi
Happy Easter!! Hope you have a wonderful day and I want to thank you for posting pics from my “heaven on earth”…………one of these days I hope to move down there and meet you one day!!
Janice/GA
I just love the scallops! Never tire of them! They may be common but oh, so beautiful!:). Thanks, Pam!
I agree 100%!
I agree too! I’ve collected lots of the pink scallops, & put them in a glass container. It shows them off beautifully. Now I’m collecting other colors. I keep going back to Home Goods for more pretty shaped glass containers to display my shells! I’m going back to Sanibel in 3 weeks! Can’t wait!!
Hahaha I love home goods too!
As usual, your scallop picture is beautiful. Although most of the scallops are the Calico Scallop, http://shellmuseum.org/shells/shelldetails.cfm?id=190 , the yellow and (probably) the completely orange shells are the Rough Scallop, http://shellmuseum.org/shells/shelldetails.cfm?id=193 . The larger tan-orange scallop in the top, right hand quadrant of the picture looks to be the bottom half of a Zigzac Scallop, http://shellmuseum.org/shells/shelldetails.cfm?id=192 . It is hard to say for sure from the picture, but that is my first guess. Is that shell still available for your review? If so, does the hinge of that shell have equal sized wings? Is the shell’s concavity slightly deeper than the other scallops? I do not recall ever finding the bottom half of a Zigzac Scallop on Sanibel, but I usually do not collect scallop halves. I am sure they are present, but do not seem to be as common as most of the other scallops, for some reason. If you no longer have that specific shell, then don’t bother, but inquiring minds want to know.
Hi MurexKen! Are you talking about the pretty orange scallop with the white on the edge? If so, I checked it out (one good thing about being messy- I didnt put it away. it was still in the same spot where I photographed it :p) and I don’t believe its the right valve of the zigzac. We have one of the right zigzag valves so I compared it and for sure its not the same. I did a post on that one so you can check it out- http://www.iloveshelling.com/blog/2012/09/27/its-a-flat-out-scallop-valve. I see that in the photo it looks really inflated… which it is. in fact it looks just as concave as the zigzag but the shape isn’t the same (which you couldn’t see in the photo). I’m sure its a calico (I found that research photo I was telling you about). thanks for asking about it!
Happy Easter to you as well. Scallops are plentiful but oh so enticing! The colors and variety are so special. I cannot resist them and they are such a wonderful subject to paint in watercolors.
I retire in the fall and hope to see you on ANY beach on Sanibel in November!
Cindy in NJ
Scallops are one of my favs, but I’ve never seen them alive before! They remind me of Spongebob Squarepants.