Bowman Beach, Sanibel Island

   

We spent a morning at Bowman Beach on Sanibel Island. Bowman Beach is one of the most famous beaches in the world for collecting shells. Laurie and I met my friend Sue Palmer at low tide in the hopes of finding some cool shells. The plan was to be at the beach for a couple of hours then go to Ding Darling birding for another couple of hours. Since both shelling and birding at Ding are both best at low tide, time was a consideration for how long we stayed at Bowman Beach. It costs five dollars an hour to park at Bowman Beach.

   Shelling is best after a storm. However, no major storms had hit the west coast of Florida for a while, so honestly, I had no idea what to expect. It turned out the beach was pretty awesome. There were a ton of shells lined up along the high tide line. The majority of shells were different colored scallops. The sand was covered in them. There were so many that the shells were the ground. We did find a few snail shells also. If we had time to walk in the water who knows what we could have found.

Dolphins swimming past the beach

   We all walked half a mile up the beach at our own pace and picked up shells that interested us. This may have been Laurie's most relaxing part of the trip. She was really looking forward to shelling and it did not disappoint. She picked up a small bag of shells. There is no question that if we ever go back to Florida again, we will spend an entire tide looking for shells both in and out of the water. 

   Besides looking for shells we came away with other awesome memories. Brown Pelicans, terns and gulls were flying over the ocean. But what really got our attention were the Bottle Nosed Dolphins pods that swam by us. As you can imagine, we all stopped looking at the sand and admired the dolphins. 

Red Knot in winter plumage

   At our turn around point half a mile up the beach we came across a flock of twenty Red Knots. Knots are among my favorite birds, so it was a treat to watch them. However, time was ticking so after five minutes we turned to the parking lot.

   As we were about to leave, terns started landing on the beach. They were coming in by the ones and twos. Sue and I were pretty excited to be so close to Royal and Sandwich Terns. I've seen both species in Florida but not so close I could pet them. Royal Tern is my Rhode Island nemesis bird. I miss them every time they are here! So it is tongue in cheek bittersweet to see them so close and so willing to be photographed in sunny Florida.

The top two terns are Sandwich Terns. Notice the yellow at the end of the bill. The bottom three are Royal Terns. Both species look like balding old men at this time of year.