Virtual Beach Walk in Southwest Florida. Let's look for beach goodies at Bunche Beach!

hello Beach friends this afternoon we are going to enjoy some time over at Bunch Beach I haven't been here in a while and as the timing would have it I'm gonna be able to catch low tide so we are going to explore Bunch Beach and look for some Critters we're gonna look for some shells and just kind of see what else we can find as we explore one of the local beaches down here Bunch Beach if you're ready for a little salt a little Sun little mud let's go to the beach [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music] so here we are at Bunch Beach it is obviously low tide and it is very muddy right in this particular area lots of rocks it's actually a little bit treacherous so if you do plan to come here at low tide definitely wear your shoes so this beach typically has tons of broken oysters really sharp kind of shells so you're definitely going to want to watch out and amongst all that there's a lot of muck too let's do a check-in it's 89 degrees and the tide is just about dead low so the tide is going out it's almost dead low now let's see what the first thing we find is and this was surprising I wasn't expecting to find it at least in this location this is a Live Lightning Welk all tucked in there but it sure is pretty and what interested me is the inside of that shell was so purple oh it's just beautiful so we'll just admire it and let it grow to be a nice big lightning Welk okay here's our first critter again one of those long wristed hermit crabs this is in a pear whelk let's see give him give him or her a second see if they're gonna come out and say hi these are pretty much the only type of hermit crabs we're gonna see today not the big I like the big red ones hopefully I'll get to see that in the near future there we go a good look at that long-risted hermit crab that really wants me to get off its shell so that's it buddy not gonna torture you too much just want to say hi let you go about go about your day there you go have fun all right lots of mud sediment stuff here but real quick before I spend too much time in the water let's just do a beach check let's see what's up here on the beach yep there's there's stuff there's pieces of shells broken this broken that so not a whole lot oh okay a crossbarred Venus I told you you're always gonna find those and a piece of a crown conch hopefully we can find a whole one there's another top so not too much going on the beach right now and frankly Bunch Beach doesn't typically have a lot of shells here's a shark eye it's kind of got that discolored kind of flavor going on you know it's a bunch does that to the shells it just kind of makes them like washed out so that's pretty much so that's a good shark eye for Bunch Beach but I like it anyway because there are always surprises you never know I haven't made it too far that's the entrance there where you see a couple of those umbrellas so I'm just kind of creeping around see what I can find whether it be a something I can keep or something we can at least just check out all right I see a crown conch and I didn't realize oh that white thing I was kind of flipping around that's a proboscis and we're going to have a really good look at that in just a little bit this is a live Crown conk I was I was obviously hoping it was not alive but it is so we'll we'll say hi take a peek at the operculum and a little critter so I believe this one was actively looking for food so we'll just say hi and put it back let it finish hunting for a snack just tuck it in there all right you see some of that mud once you kind of Stir It Up it just the water even though it was very clear here we have another shark eye with that weird kind of like coloring and another one of those long wristed hermit crabs and there were a lot of hermit crabs it was actually kind of cool there were other kids there and then Mom look at the hermit crabs it was so if you're you know if you want your kids to kind of experience this out in nature bring them on over to Bunch Beach because I don't know that I've ever been here and not seen at least one or two hermit crabs this particular day there was a whole bunch of them that could have helped because the tide was so low but there were a lot and the kids were having fun so that was that was kind of cool got to see a whole bunch of hermit crabs oh okay a keeper a rose petal telling kind of unusual that you'd find a cool shell like that here oh a foot insert from the genus Dr schollis okay not really it's garbage but what was interesting is how quickly the sea life wanted to adapt attach itself and just use it so I'm gonna throw that in the garbage get that out of the critters way here we have a Sunray Venus and I couldn't quite tell if it was alive or just kind of tightly closed some kind of kind of creates a vacuum this one happened to be alive so that is a live Sunray Venus clam and I'm just gonna leave it there to do its Sunray Venus clam thing another rose petal Talon all right this one's a little a little discoloration a little green that's okay it's a pretty rose petal Towing what do we got another okay a keeper now a Sun Ray Venus clam with the other side all busted up yep I'm just gonna keep the half cool show all right just for orientation out in the distance there you'll see that blue Arch that is the bridge to Fort Myers Beach that is North Fort Myers Beach kind of bowditch area that other land mass there that is Sanibel and as I pan around you'll see the causeway over to Sanibel and then just kind of wraps around so bunch is really more of a bay-facing beach versus a gulf facing Beach so it's a little different and that is a lightning Welk again the collar a little bit muted that's the I don't it's the minerals there's something going on this beach that does that now that even though it looks just like a white rose petal Talon that is a Tampa Talon so that's kind of cool and another looks like another lightning walk oh and it's alive so here we have another Live Lightning Welk there's you can see if I turn well all right I was looking at the the front of the shell Studio perculum I did that real quick oh dear it's rather green but that who cares like shell can be as green and slimy as it wants go be healthy guy or gal do your thing now that I know you can't really see it great and it is Crown conch egg casings and I was hesitant to pick it up because I wasn't really sure if it was viable or what was going on now they typically lay them in the spring and summer and this is October so I don't know what was going on there but I just left it alone at this point I know it's a little uh not your typical Beach but it sure is pretty so at this point I'm going to give you a little beach time foreign so I'm still making my way South so I kind of started the beach I go left which is south and I wanted to come up here just to see if anything was maybe stranded because the tide went out and uh looks like the critters are pretty smart there wasn't really much up here so they had buried themselves they had done whatever it was they needed to do to wait for the tide to come back in okay here I have another buried hinged Sun Ray Venus clamshell We'll Wash that oh very nice very clean very cool a hinged Sunray Venus clam awesome and what do I spy here oh man all right so that was a pear Welk and it's just all sorts of beat up but look at the size of that I awesome not a keeper but it was interesting to pick it up and go man if only it was if only that was a good show we have another hinged Sunray Venus clamshell a little on the slimy side yeah it's okay nope that's fine that'll clean up just fine and what do we got here oh well High Crown conch that's empty and a keeper woohoo all right and this was really really unusual this is a banded tulip and I don't really find them here like ever but I found this one and it actually it's aperture is not broken it's not in terrible shape but stick around to the very very end and I'll show you how that ultimately cleaned up after I brought it home and gave it a little TLC uh-huh there's a critter in there so that's a little NASA and there's a little little long-wisted hermit crab in there so it was tough finding shelves that you could keep a lot of them were already taken so the tide is way way out but it's so pretty so I'm just kind of wandering around this little tide pool again kind of hoping I find you know Critter shells something water's nice and clear visibility conditions are great and there's just not a whole heck of a lot here I mean there's just not so I'm going to keep looking there's another hermit crab and a crown conch so it looks like most of the keeper shells are already uh already taken here's a little drill of some sort again yep a little critter in there so it's a great day to come and see the hermit crabs they were everywhere and so were the Sun Ray Venus clams look at another one hinged although this one this one chipped a little ear on the end there and I wondered if it is the lightning welks kind of trying to open them is it Birds maybe pecking at those because a lot of those shells you'll see as we go are broken now this shell is new to me I don't know what it is it was paper thin like almost completely translucent or just transparent I mean you could really see right through it does have like a little Ridge on it don't know what it is is it maybe a Tampa Talent I I don't know so that that one was a little bit of a mystery now I saw another Live Lightning walk that one I could determine was alive so I thought okay we picked up a couple let me just leave this one alone and see if we can kind of check it doing out anything interesting other than just trying to not get washed around by the surf so that black piece sticking out the front that is this Critters proboscis and it does look like it's hunting it eats clams and that's why I was saying about those Sun Ray Venus clam shells because a lot of them had a broken or chipped Edge to the shell and I was wondering if it broke as the lightning walk was trying to trying to pry it open who knows hopefully one day I'll figure it out but this guy's not really doing all that much I think we've seen what we can see so let's just keep it moving all right what do we find in next Critter or shell shell oh and that one has a little chip too see what I mean so yep that is another Sunray Venus hinged clam I'm gonna go ahead and keep the side that isn't broken no and this was unusual too I thought this was going to be a shell but it's alive so this is a live pair whelk there's little curriculum oh poor Critter all right so the Critter is retreating it is going into its shell it will protect itself with that operculum it's pushing water out as it kind of Retreats into the shell kind of pretty so I'll make sure that that Critter sorry buddy sorry to disturb you I'll put them back and here is a disc dosenia with all sorts of slimy beach stuff on it but I'm gonna go ahead and keep it try to clean that up and here is yep that was another lightning walk and I I saw that it was alive so I just left it alone just left it where I found it now what do we have here a crown conk with a critter oh darn it it's got really good spikes on it too so that would have been a cool show but Finders Keepers that hermit crab found itself a fantastic home looks like it'll be okay for a while too so there you go friend do your thing now there was a lot of grasses here and I had never really noticed that there was grasses again the tide is really low so I'm able to really kind of walk out there so I was wondering this we had found a seahorse here once it was alive on the beach we did return it to the water someone I was kind of looking didn't find any seahorses but I did find yet another hermit crab in a serif shell not an auger but a Seraph so we'll just put that Critter back and there's another one of our Shorebirds some sort of egret wasn't exactly sure but those birds were also we'll see a couple more in a little bit enjoying the low tide as well the opportunities that arise When the tide is low and then that shell I was trying to figure it out if it was the snail or if it's a hermit crab in there I think I ultimately came to the decision it is a hermit crab now this is a crown conch I'm not going to leave it it is totally alive and if you look at the front of its shell right there so keep your eye on that look at that's its proboscis and so it's kind of probing smelling hunting so it's looking for food and I'm really trying to control myself because I think they're so pretty and from all the like these guys will kind of hang out with you not the way that the Florida Fighting console just kind of would be whipping all over the place these guys will they're they're more docile I but I love the crown conk and you can kind of see it with its little ecosystem on its back kind of moving around oh I just think they're so cool and another hinged Sun Ray Venus clam let's see a little slimy not too bad go ahead and keep those they're so pretty even though they're just clams they're real pretty so that's it I have I can walk no further south and that is what the day looks like not too shabby so this is Bunch Beach it is like I said it's a kind of a bay facing Beach it is much different than any of the beaches that I typically go to typically I'm looking you know for the big shells and this isn't really a shelling Beach it's really much more of an exploring Beach and then you get bonus shells once in a while so here is a little Crown conch it's got the it's you know the color it's kind of muted and that's what Bunch does to these shells it just for whatever reason makes them kind of a beige color except for the rose petal Talons those always stay pink so that is another rose petal Talon woohoo oh I'll show you at the end I was Finding so much glass it was really bumming me out so that's what's going on here Bunch Lou again little just crushed things there's a little bit more going on in the in the water to the left here kind of the stuff that would have been in the tide here's a broken shark eye looks like a piece of a jewel box and everything's very green very very muddy I love makes it more exciting for me I just I like the muck it doesn't bother me at all like picking through all this stuff and seeing what you can discover oh it looks like I discovered two more of those Tampa talons those are neat I do not find them a lot so it's kind of cool and these snails are cool too or these shells actually both the snail and the shell this is a ladder horned snail and you can tell the edge the opening there is just ever so different than the augers or the seriths so that is a ladder horn snail and more just little pieces I got lucky one time crossbarred Venus always gonna find those Morton egg cockle so I was kind of hoping I'd find a rental trap I did get Super Lucky once there is a lightning walk and managed to find a rental trap just kind of looking in little pieces of debris but not yet today to be fair I didn't spend a ton of time up in the little pieces it just kind of periodically would check hoping to get lucky and then keep it moving now this if you look inside that little Shadow there you will see that that is a crowned so I did find at least one Critter that looks like it got a little bit Stranded by the tide going out so it looked like it was having kind of a hard time I'm sure it it probably would have been just fine I mean these guys are conditioned to understand you know be okay out of the water for at least one tide cycle but I kind of can't help myself so I'm just going to go ahead and get it into some water there you go much better and channeled duck clam a rather large channeled duck clam right kind of a cool find definitely going to keep that especially on a day like today ugh with the glass although I did find check this out now I've never found meowie Juwanna catnip so good it should be illegal I didn't even know it existed so that was I kind of cracked me up I thought that was kind of funny but I took that and made sure it made it into the garbage now this was kind of exciting because this is a buried lightning Welk and it's kind of given me some trouble so I know there's a bit of shell there and I get it up and I'm like oh drat so it is definitely broken on the bottom and once it kind of rinsed it off just packed full of mud it's broken so not a keeper and I was bummed I was kind of hoping that that would be that would have been a really cool find but not today was not to be so I just wanted to kind of show you how treacherous this walking was and every time I turned around there was a piece of glass and I was just horrified thinking that people might be barefoot here so I could not resist and every time I started to try to keep walking a piece of glass would catch the corner of my eye so I did this for a little while and at the end of the not the very end but shortly I will show you all the glass I picked up it was really quite a bummer I think you know for the most part people probably wouldn't step on it just because it's buried with all this other really sharp stuff so people probably would have been careful anyway but I was picking up all the glass I could find and we'll take a peek at that in a minute so I'm back over kind of by the entrance and I'm walking toward the other end of the beach and I found myself a crown COG okay colors okay nice and spiky though so I'm gonna go ahead and keep that now the sand see the way that the sand is kind of ripply that is aptly named current ripples so the current will kind of make those indentations and patterns in the sand as the tide goes out so many interesting things about the beach and here's some birds enjoying themselves there's a few more it was really pretty and quiet there was like nobody here so I had the place to myself it's my favorite okay that's weird all right not all right that is another hinged Sunray Venus clam with unfortunately that one half on the end that is broken but I'm going to keep the side that's not broken and another so it was a great day for a Sunray Venus claims especially if you like the hinged ones don't know what people prefer I think they're kind of cool because it's a little more unusual to find the shelves when they're hinged so that's kind of exciting I go to wash this one off there's another one waiting for me so who am I to say no to yet another hinge Sunray Venus clam kind of winding down at this point I've walked as far as I could to the One Direction as far as I could in the other direction so it's about time to wrap up my walk and let's go see what a couple of those shells at the end look like but before we do that let's just quick and it really it did it broke my heart this is all the the glass that I picked up so I left that in the recycling bin that was really kind of a bummer but at least it made its way back into the garbage and off the beach and not surprising I mostly found Sunray Venus clam shells never know what you're gonna find but I did get a couple of Tampa talents which was unusual couple Crown conks did get that banded tulip a ladderhorn snail back is the lightning well couple of temp uh rose petal Talons the duck clam the distocenia so a couple things a couple now remember that yep that rather green banded tulip so I scrubbed it soaked it in Bleach dipped it in acid and then put mineral oil on it so this is as good as this shell is going to get it's okay I think it cleaned up pretty good all things considered so I was rewarded with a decent banded tulip everyone thank you thank you patreons for supporting me thank you for leaving comments thank you for watching thank you for telling your friends about the channel so just all around thank you I appreciate everything you do I do read every single comment that comes in so if you have any ideas or tips throw it my way I hope you have a great week next Sunday we're headed to Sanibel and I'll see you then