Sanibel...Where Shells Fall From the Sky!

Where were we???  Oh yeah...walking on the beach on Sanibel Island ,  practicing the Sanibel Stoop, when suddenly a large mollusk (of unknown species...reddish brown and white, scalloped (clue?), and still breathing) falls from the sky and lands at my feet! What in the world??? I look up and see nothing but blue sky?? We had noticed that  on this beautiful morning the tide was low and hundreds of these particular mollusks had washed in and deposited themselves at the waterline...waiting to be taken back to sea..but also providing a smorgasbord buffet for the seabirds! ( Royal Terns, plovers,and regular old seagulls, the healthiest you have ever seen!) Anyhow back to the smorgasbord...the birds were working hard at getting their beaks into the small opening of these bubble blowing mollusks... eating with gusto when they were successful and very frustrated when they could not!  But these guys were problem solvers...have you figured it out yet??....Plop another one falls from the sky!!! You got it right??? That's right ...these problem solving birds were picking them up , carrying them up to about 75 feet and dropping them back to the beach to open them! ( Or hit annoying tourists...I am not sure which!)
Amazing...  and that was only one of the new and magical things we encountered on this gem of an island!
Tune in...I want to stay here on Sanibel as long as I can...stretch it out ...eventually I will get back to the present!
Tomorrow...Into the mangroves!!!