Florida Day 3 – Osprey, Shark, & Lightening Whelks
Day 3 arrived with a beautiful morning! We love camping here at the beach! This community is so much fun and our children love to greet people as they are walking by. They just step out the door in the morning and have lots of sand to play with and dig in until breakfast is served. As we eat breakfast we are wondering what wonderful things we will discover on our walk this morning on the beach. Every day is different and it is exciting to see what has washed up the night before onto the sand. Today we found lots of lightning whelks, saw two osprey fightning in the air over a fish and watched a shark fisherman catch a shark.
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One of our neighbors brought this beach cart over and asked if we wanted it as they were leaving and couldn't fit it. What a blessing! We were very thankful for this as we forgot our wagon to haul our stuff to the beach. This made it so much easier!
The first night here our children discovered the lightening whelks hidden in the sand. It is so wild how the ocean changes from year to year and from day to day. Last year we found a couple of these far out on a sandbar on our last morning, and this year they were every 5 feet in certain sections on the beach in the sand where we were walking. But you had to know what you were looking for. There is a lightning whelk buried in the sand very close to where our son is in the above picture. They look like a little tiny shell in the sand, but really hurt if you step on them.
In the above picture you can barely see the very end point sticking out of the water near his hand. Then you pull it out and get this huge shell like the one below! It is so neat! Pretty soon the boys could spot them so quickly as they walked along.
We did not get a good picture, but this morning while walking along the beach an OSPREY came down right near us and grabbed a fish out of the water. When an osprey grabs a fish, he turns it in his claws to face forward so that it is more flying dynamic. But then as he did this, another osprey came at him and they fought in the air over the fish. The other osprey grabbed the fish but then dropped it so in the end no one got the fish and they flew off. It was so neat to see! What beautiful birds!
Time for the beach! They had so much fun on the intertubes and boogie boards. Thankfully the waves were much calmer this year than last
We were all playing on the beach when we heard someone say they caught a shark! We have a shark fisherman that camps near to us and we had been waiting for him to catch a shark. Everyone around rushed over to see it reeled in and then let go. Our children loved it!
Our spot on the beach. We were there fairly early as the beach filled up more about an hour later. You can see the RV's behind us. It is so nice because the people that are at the beach are mostly all the people at the RV park.
Everyone is ready for dinner after a full fun day at the beach.
Another beautiful sunset walk to end our day. The beach is alway so good for my soul especially after a long winer. The water, the beauty, the warmth, the sun, the fun of discovery, finding treasures in the sand, exploration and being outside most all of the day in God's beautiful creation, all so good for my soul!
