Every year we spend a few days on the Southern Maine coast and visit some of my favorite places. This year the temperatures were in the high 60’s and on Friday it was 70 degrees! The weather gave us several very pleasant beach combing days. We started at Wells Beach where we filmed this short video. 

We then walked Laudholm Farm Beach and Rachel Carson’s Wildlife Sanctuary which are two of my favorite places to walk in Wells, Maine. We were also able to explore York Beach and it’s rich tide pools on the way home. It was a fabulous trip!

Many of the shells you see in this video are typical of what we found on Laudholm Farm Beach and Long Sands Beach in York. Enjoy!

August 31st
A peaceful 90 degree day spent at Hampton Beach, in New Hampshire. The ocean was sparkling, calm, and clear. Refreshing swimming at 68 degrees; a perfect day. At sunset we walked the Seabrook, Ma side of the Hampton Harbor Inlet to shoot this video of the seashells we found there. You can hear cars going over the metal drawbridge section of Mile Bridge (Rte. 1A) in the background.

In November, on our way home from Maine we stopped at Sandy Point on Plum Island. Last time we visited Plum Island we walked the middle section of this lovely barrier island and found many beautiful shells including the Chestnut Astarte. This time we drove out Refuge Road to the southern tip called Sandy Point. It is also part of the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge. 
It was such a beautiful spot and we did not have much time to comb the beach so I cannot wait to go back and really explore. Till' we get back again- enjoy this little video. (Watch it till' the end for a little surprise.)
I also want to clarify that the Northern Moon Snail has a large foot that it holds the clam with while it tunnels through the shell with it's radula. The radula is like a ribbon with little teeth and the snail uses it like a file. Kinda scary if your a clam or another Moon snail - because they can be cannibals! 
Still - they have one of the most beautiful shells on the Northeast coast.

On September 17th we were able to get out to Plum Island in Massachusetts for a beach combing adventure. We walked for over three hours combing the beach for treasures and found lots of them! The most interesting find was the Chestnut Astarte clams. Even after we shot this video I found a portion of a Waved whelk and a Stimpson's whelk. I was also really pleased to find several small Deep Sea Scallop shells - very pretty! I will post photos of those soon...for now enjoy this video from Plum Island!

These Periwinkles and Dogwinkles (also called Dog Whelks) were hard to see in the last video post so here you can take a closer look!