I took advice from the research I’ve done about shelling and pocketed some little seashells from my recent trip to New Smyrna Beach.
I found living mollusks inside their shells, like this little shark’s eye shell, which I photographed and left alone. There were only a few shells down by the water, so I did my searching up near the dune line where high tide may have deposited some goodies.
We went onto the beach at the Flagler Ave. entrance and headed north to park the car. I saw a few sea turtle nests roped off with yellow tape, up near the dune area where cars are not allowed. After swimming and boogie boarding for a bit, I took a break from the water and went in search of treasures at the high tide line.
We’d had a very high tide during the week. It might have been because of the full moon, but when we got to the beach it was high tide, and it was nowhere near the tide line I found way up by the dunes. So the tide line can change. Keep that in mind when searching for shells to collect.
The east coast beaches I used to frequent never gave me much of a variety of shells, and I didn’t find a big variety this time either. I did find more shells up there in the soft sand than I found down near the water. Mostly clams and a few oysters, and one piece of what used to be a big sand dollar. I found no univalves at all (except for the occupied shark’s eye), but one of the kids found a living, lettered olive in the tide pool. I was happy to be able to tell him what it was called!
