As I mentioned yesterday, I was at the Novelists’ Ink conference in St. Pete’s Beach last week. It’s been at the same location since 2013 and this is the third time I’ve attended at this location. I love to walk the beach whenever I’m close to one. I also love to pick up seashells.
The first year that I attended the NINC conference in St. Pete’s, I brought home two or three shells. There are lots of conchs with their residents still inside, but those get left on the beach. Here’s one that a crab has chosen for its new home. There are more pix of the beach from that trip, right here.
The second year I attended, I had a bit more luck, and even found three fighting conchs.
This year, the shells were amazing, especially on Sunday morning after the king tide on Saturday night. Here’s what I picked up this year.
Cockle shells:
Fighting Conchs:
I love how these look inside:
And my big score, my very first Sunray Venus, the two halves still attached. It’s about four inches long.
These have a lovely tangerine glow on the interior:
Do you pick up seashells when you’re at the beach? What do you do with them once you get home?
Then there were the birds. I love the pelicans, which are quite common in this area. 
These are seagulls but this variety are a little smaller than the more common ones. They hang out together and have jazzy little black caps:
Here’s a sand piper. There were two different kinds that I noticed – this is the taller kind.
Here’s the smaller sandpiper. They were a bit fluffier.
Here’s a heron with a more common seagull looking on. When I first saw this one, he was fishing up a storm, so busily snatching at little fishes in this pond that he blurred in every picture. He’s eaten his fill now and is heading out.
At the north end of the beach, there’s this rock pier where people fish – and of course, the birds that like to eat fish hang out in the vicinity, just in case. There are at least three kinds of herons in this shot, including a great blue heron to the very far right (who blends in very well.) If you go back to the first picture, you can just barely see this rock pier at the end of the beach.
Here’s a shot of a large white heron. The two on the left are smaller, like the one I showed above.
Of course, there are also shells on St. Pete Beach, given that it’s on the gulf side. I picked up a fighting conch shell and it vibrated like a cell phone. I thought maybe the conch was still alive and, since they’re poisonous, left it alone. Farther down the beach, I met a woman who knew the real answer: there was a crab inside. Here’s the crab she found, taking a peek at the world: 
I brought home a few shells, too, but not any crabs!
Deborah Cooke & Her Books 