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!

Ever since I saw this beach from Mass Audubon's Long Pasture Wildlife Sanctuary across the bay I have wanted to visit. We finally got out there on a windy Oct. day and found lots of treasures. One unusual find was a fish bone - seemingly from a sun fish that we stumbled upon after finding the bone. I also almost always find little toys that have been left behind. This time it was a little blue dolphin. I think it is the best toy treasure I have ever found while combing a beach! We finally ducked behind a ridge of sand and at the base of the sand dunes to try and get out of the wind to film this short video. Enjoy : D

This is the sunfish carcass that I assume the fish bone belongs too...Sorry if this grosses you out...but I thought it was pretty interesting just the same. Here is a link to a live ocean sun fish (also called a Mola Mola)  video:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7ZQwlwbrQo

Not long ago I was invited by Dorie Stolley of the Goldenrod Foundation to be a guest leader on a field trip to discover the mollusks of Long Beach in Plymouth, Ma. I was thrilled to accept the invitation.
On Sunday, April 27th Dorie, my husband and I, the Beach Ambassadors, and PACTV (Plymouth Area Community Television) reporter Brian braved the rather chilly temperatures for a beach combing afternoon.
At first many of the finds were pieces of shells -some hard to distinguish - except for the iridescent bits of blue mussel. But as we made our way down the beach we were rewarded with many wonderful finds.
We found HUGE periwinkles, slipper shells, surf clams, blue mussels, quahogs, black clams, soft shell clams, gould’s pandoras, northern moon snails, bay scallops, waved whelks, a stimpson whelk, a sweet little new england whelk and one gorgeous specimen of a New England Neptune (also called a ten-ridged whelk)!
It was a wonderful afternoon and I was so pleased to meet and be in the company of so many environmentally conscious people. I was able to talk about the seashells I love and the creatures that inhabit them. It was a great day - one that we enjoyed immensely!
My thanks to everyone who participated and special thanks to Dorie for the invitation! I’m especially pleased with the work that the Goldenrod Foundation is doing to protect and preserve the nature of Long Beach. I was honored to be a part of their mission.

On the vernal equinox (March 20, 2014), my husband and I walked the spit of Plymouth Long Beach along the harbor channel. It was a good hike and we were happy to find lots of shells. I picked up a few as you can see from the photo - The top shells are the two halves (or valves) of an oyster, many Moon snail tops (I think there is a craft for them in the future), Periwinkles, two Gould's Pandora shells, one Flat Slipper Shell, a False Angel Wing, a huge Operculum from a Moon Snail, a broken New England Dog Whelk, three Bay Scallops, a neat rock, two pieces of beach glass and a fish bone vertebra. We also found the carcass of a dolphin and later we found two of it's ribs on the shoreline.
The shell that surprised me the most is the oyster shell. It looks more like a European Oyster Shell and I'm curious if anyone knows if this is possible. (I have read that they are farming them in Maine?)
But the big treasure of the day - is that large Operculum - it is the "door" to the Moon Snail - it covers it's aperture - the opening of the shell.
We also saw some Brant geese, Common Eider ducks and Sanderlings - sweet!

European Oyster?

The dead dolphin : (

The Operculum. (door to opening of Moon Snail)

Brant Geese & Sanderling.

Dolphin ribs.

Eider ducks.

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!