This picture gives you an idea of the number if not the diversity of shells at Sanibel Island, Florida. The beach is littered with caches of shells, even mounds in places. Having just returned from a wonderful few days there, it is very fresh in my mind, even though there were fewer shells there this time than any other time I have been. One woman on the beach said there were fewer shells in the fall than any other season. She did not say why. There were still gobs of shells but they tended to be much smaller in size. In a mound like the one pictured here we found tiny conchs, tulips and several other spiral kinds of shells. I did find a huge lightning whelk (about a foot long), but it had a live animal in it and taking live shells is prohibited. It had apparently been washed up in the tide and was digging down in the sand to escape the sun when I found it. (I will post that picture later.)After admiring it we waded out as far as possible and tossed it as far out as we could to make sure it did not come ashore again.
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