Tag Archives: siesta key beach

Sand Castle Friday #20

Sand Castle competitions have turned into Sand Sculpture competitions. I guess people feel they can be more creative by sculpting anything they can think of out of sand.

As we approach the Fall and Snowbird weather, beach towns will be hosting sand sculpting competitions. Beaches are less crowded than during the peak summer seasons so sculptors can spread out and create without infringing on someone’s beach blanket space. I hope  you can find some to enjoy.

Here’s a photo I took several years ago on Siesta Key of a sculpture I really like. Its a sculpture of people building a sand castle.  Or, they could be hugging it.

Sand Castle Love!

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Happy Sand Castle Friday!

Shorebird Nesting Awareness and Greeting Cards

The Caspian Tern is one of my favorite shorebirds.  It is the largest tern out there, the size of a gull, and frequently nests near gull colonies.

These photos are a set that I am selling on blank greeting cards through my Etsy store, Crafty Beachcomber.  They are fixed to ivory cards measuring 5×6.5; the photos are 4×6 and are suitable for framing.

I always loved when the Caspian Tern came in flocks to the Siesta Key beach.  On a windy day, their black tuft would raise with the breeze like a spiked hair on an 80’s punk rocker.  I got so used to referring to them as the punk rock bird, I had to look up their actual name. Shame on me!

The cards are a limited edition of 100 and the proceeds will benefit Save the Chicks, a shorebird nesting awareness organization.  Money will be given to an organization that helps educate the public while protecting the nesting habitats of shorebirds.  Most of these birds nest in a scrape on the beach.  They, the nest and the eggs are mostly camouflaged and susceptible to destruction from beach goers, pets and, prey.  Beach towns usually rope off areas of the beach for these federally protected birds, when nests are found, but many people don’t respect this.  When you are at the beach this summer, please stay out of and away from roped areas  Protect our birds.

Visit Save The Chicks for more information about the Caspian Tern and why protecting birds is important.

Meanwhile, if you would like to order a set of 4 cards, please visit my Etsy store: Crafty Beachcomber.  Thanks.

Washing Ashore on Siesta Key Beach

I love things that wash ashore. I only wish I had been there for this one.
http://sarasotabeaches.wtsp.com/news/weird/87496-giant-lego-man-washes-ashore-sarasota

Lego Man washed ashore Siesta Key and I think that’s where he should stay; on Siesta Key.  There are plenty of places to display the statue.  The public beach area or the Village are probably the best two areas so everyone can visit him.  Otherwise, if Lego Man has to leave the Key, Sarasota has a wonderful section of town along the Bay at the Marina and the entrance to Bird Key and Lido Key where they display sculpture art. I think that would be a fun place to display Lego Man.  Hopefully, though, Lego Man will be left on Siesta Key and I will get to see it when I return to Sarasota for my next visit.

Dolphin Rescued from Siesta Key Beach

On Dec 16 a stranded dolphin, named Ginger, was rescued from our beach by the staff of MOTE Marine Laboratory.

Click here for the story: http://www.mote.org/index.php?src=news&submenu=Newsroom&refno=246

Update: http://www.mote.org/index.php?src=news&submenu=Newsroom&refno=247

Please support MOTE and their efforts to heal Ginger.

Octopus on Siesta Key beach

Last time I wrote I told of my experience with the 2″ octopus.  It’s still doing fine in its dead state in a jar in my refrigerator.  My son wants to use it as a prop for an expository speech he has to make in his speech class.  I guess it’ll be another day or two before we dissect it.

The day after I found our little dead friend, my husband was floating along the shore, around access 4 to the beach.  He felt his foot hit something along the bottom and reached down to scoop it up.  It was a large pen shell shut tightly.  The pen shell was just short of a foot long.  He decided to check out the critter inside and when he opened it, there he found a 4″-5″ octopus.  My husband said on the one hand it was really cool to see but on the other it creeped him. 

Our earth is covered in water and filled with all kinds of God’s creatures, which is really exciting.  There’s so much to explore, discover and learn.  But how often does it really cross our minds, when we are having fun at the beach, that these creatures are out there with us; that we’re swimming with them, in their pool?  We have rays, sharks, fish of all kinds, manatees, whales, plankton, all types of gastropods and bivalves swimming and floating around us when we’re jumping waves, or just floating.  Outside the occasional shark bite you may read about from somewhere in this great world, its amazing that we (humans and water creatures) can get along.

I am so glad we have been given this opportunity to see nature that most people just read about.