Broken Shells - Florida November 2013

My favorite beach activity is picking up shells. Most of the time they are broken pieces of a form that sheltered a life in the sea. Sometimes they are lying on top of the sand and sometimes they bring a sand in their curves when I pick them up. It was too cool to want to wash them off in the waves in November so there was more sand than usual with the shells in my bag.

I always like to image the part of the shell that is missing - to complete the curves.

Sometimes it is as easy as imagining a mirror image that could complete the half into a whole.

Enjoying the Birds at Florida Beaches

The weather was too cool and windy to swim, so we enjoyed watching birds on the beach instead….at Canaveral National Seashore, Cocoa Beach and the beaches near Melbourne.

The wind made for some ruffled feathers. The terns would quickly turn into the wind and preen to resume their usual sleek look.

Or sometimes they just tolerated their ‘punkish’ look.

A willet and sanderling fed side by side on the goodies left from the waves rolling in. 

And the best of the rest are in the slide show below!

Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge

I’ve posted already about the vultures and egrets at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge and the sunset/sunrise at the Assateague Island National Seashore. This post is a collection of other aspects of the place that I photographed on our visit in May.

There were ducklings that suddenly appeared from behind a clump of grass with the momma and proceeded to bathe in the water. Some of the ripples in the picture above are actually more ducklings that have temporarily submerged! Hours later it occurred to me that it would have been an excellent time to try testing out the video function in my camera.

There is a new visitor center at the refuge. The skylights are on top of chimney like structures. They provide light to the inside but not direct sunlight. Good design.

Does everyone that goes to the beach take at least one bird picture like this one to the left?

We didn’t seen any of the famous Chincoteague ponies in the refuge but there were two mares with colts in the corral next to our inn that were available for adoption. These ponies did not seem as scruffy as I remembered from previous visits when we had seen them in the marsh.

The light house was being renovated but we walked around to see it through the trees. I managed to use the zoom to take a close up of the top with the cables attached to support the renovation work.

On the way back to the car from the lighthouse - trying to walk faster than the mosquitoes and midges - I managed to notice and photograph a frog beside the path. It seems like 9:00 AM was the wake up time for the insects and nothing deterred them!

Pieces of Shell

Back in April, I picked up shells while watching the sun come up at Surfside Beach, South Carolina. I posted about the sunrise but am just getting around to photographing the shells. Even broken shells attract attention.

Their ridges in gentle, fanning curves

The smooth surfaces worn by water and sand

The bumps where sea urchin spines once anchored

The spirals that have broken open

And some that are still tight.

All of these shells will find a new home around plants in a pot - souvenirs from a spring day at the beach.

Sunset and Sunrise as Assateague Island National Seashore - May 2013

I visited the Assateague Island National Seashore in Virginia this week. There was a brisk sea breeze at both sunrise and sunset - enough to keep the mosquitos away.

The sunset was observed from the Toms Cove Visitor Center. We arrived a bit too early but there things to photograph beforehand - birds getting a snack before darkness and the lighthouse. The lighthouse in undergoing renovation and the cables used are seen in the image. The sunset itself was made more interesting by a lower bank of clouds. After the sun was behind the horizon the swirls in the clouds became more apparent.

The sunrise was observed looking out over the Atlantic from the beach. Again we arrived early but were shortly joined by a few others. It was before 6 AM! One person arrived on a motorcycle and headed off down the beach with his camera. A group of five people walked halfway down to the beach but then stopped and just stood huddled in the morning coolness to watch the sunrise. A man got out a folding chair and walked halfway to the shore and then sat. After photographing the lighthouse in the near darkness, I walked down to the beach. There were no shells to pick up but there was a sandcastle that someone had constructed the day before that incorporated a horseshoe crab into its structure and the waves were crashing to shore; it was good to hear them without the beach repair machinery noise of the previous day.

There was a boat visible in the morning mist. I took a few pictures of birds waking up.

The clouds were thick enough that the sun was hidden until it was well above the horizon and the color did not extend to all the clouds. It was a misty dawn.