Red Tide

Recently, Florida's west coast has been experiencing red tide. Yesterday I went to Lido with my mom and we walked all the way down to a wall that we walk down to. At the wall, there was lots of dead fish on the sand. It smelled bad and red tide makes it hard to breath. The red tide didn't seem to be effecting the seabirds too much, but we were only seeing the birds that were close to shore and not the ones farther out. There were also lots of olive snails stranded near the water. We put all that we could find back in the water. We did not find many good shells that day, or much trash.

Coquinas

These are Donax variabilis, or coquinas. They are bivalves, like scallops, and oysters. They come in many colors like purple, yellow, brown, pink, and lots more. They are very common in Florida. The top photo is of connected coquinas. The second photo is of disconnected coquinas. The third is of a coquina I found in my jar of coquinas. It looks like it has a question mark on it. I have seen hundreds of live coquinas trying to get under the sand before another wave hits them sometimes, and birds get the coquinas when they can.

A Cold Day in Florida

Hi, sorry I've not been posting recently. We have been having relatives over almost all December. Yesterday was the only time that I have been on our beaches, and it was too cold to look for long. It felt like my ears were about to be frozen solid, here in Florida! The only animal I saw was a tunicate that was washed up on shore, and I put him back. There were no good shells and not much trash (it had rained a lot a few days ago, and it got windy). So we came back earlier than our usual two hour walk. This is the first time since I have moved down to Sarasota that it was this cold.

Devil Rays II

On the ninth of December, my sister, Valerie, my mom, and I went to Lido to go swimming and to let Valerie try her new surfboard on the flat, clear water. I was looking in the water and I found a tiny black seahorse. As I was walking out to bring it in deeper water, two boys stopped me and asked what I had. I told them that it was a seahorse. Then they asked if they could "see" it. I opened my cupped hands and one of them snatched it right out of my hands and was moving it around out of the water! I was speechless. Then my mom came over and explained to them that it needed to be in the water, then they finally gave it back. They kept asking me if they could "hold" it as I walked to a patch of sea grass in deeper water. Almost as soon as I got back, I found a tiny nudibranch in some seaweed. It was mostly tan, but it had blue and yellow on it too. By now, Valerie made another friend who was from Oklahoma. So she swam and talked to him the whole two hours we were there. A while after I had put the nudibranch out a bit further, a small group of devil rays swam a few feet from my mom and I. There were more than last time I saw them. They swam back and forth, eating the tiny fish that were there. The two boys I saw earlier where trying to catch them without any success. I got within a few inches from them at one point. As I watched them, I noticed that one of them had a scar the shape of a jellyfish, and one had no tail. Sometimes they would swim out deeper and jump out of the water! My mom estimated that some were jumping three feet out of the water. Valerie's friend got suctioned by one on the leg and it left a red mark. I don't know how it happened, they are not usually aggressive. He said that it bit him (even though it couldn't) and would not go back in the water for a long time. After a while, the people found out that they had no stingers, and went in the water. So the devil rays swam into deeper water. As I watched them, three jumped out of the water twice. It was a fun trip.

Dissecting a Dogfish ( And Finding a Hook)

Today, my sister and I got to dissect a dog fish for our science. We got to see the inside of the shark, and we were looking at what it ate, and mine had a piece of fishing line with two hooks on it! I guess it was part of one of those really long lines with hundreds of hooks on them which animals get tangled in. I am going to keep it so I can remember that I found it inside a dog fish. I will hopefully get some pictures on here that my mom took.

Shark Eye Shells

Varieties of Neverita Duplicata

Neverita duplicata, or shark eyes, are a kind of snail that live in the shells shown above. I have honestly never seen a live one, but I have lots of empty shells that I find on the beach. They come in a variety of sizes and colors like the big one on the top left, and the small one on the lower right. Or the striped one on the top right. The most common colors are the colors that the top left one, and the lower left one have. The striped one is the only striped shark eye I have seen.

Mote Summit

A few weeks ago, I went to a summit at the Mote. It started with an introduction where you wrote down something that you wanted to do to help the oceans. I wrote about a documentary that I am planning on making. Then I went to four different groups to learn about something. The first one was about making art with trash like what I do with some of the trash that I find on the beach. The second group was about marketing and money, like that some companies will say that they are green and good for the environment, but green is a color and not all the thing that say they are green are really green. Then I went to the thirdgroup that talked about branding, not what some people might do to cows, but about brands and the mistakes that some branders make. The last one was about marine debris, and the effects that fishing line has on marine life.