Meanwhile, stay safe, wash your hands and practice social distancing. Much of it is unseen, beneath the sand, or hidden by the waves. There is so much to see and enjoy on the beach.
The males eventually grow larger and swim on their own, but are always much smaller than the females.
The males are much smaller, almost microscopic, and embedded in the egg mass of the female. Later in the summer they are more colorful with bright-orange eggs attached to their abdomen.
The ones you see swimming in the tidal swash (yes, that is the term for the area on the beach where waves wash) zone are almost always female. They too move up and down the beach with the tide. They are more useful as pompano bait than edible by humans. The other prey sought by the shore birds are the mole crabs. Enjoy! Now you know why it is a marine biologist’s Stone Soup. Season to taste with sea salt (of course), pepper and any available herbs and spices. The clams are extremely sandy, and it is impossible to separate the small bits of clam from the sand.Īt this point, add some carrots, potatoes, peas, corn or any other vegetables you might have, return to a simmer and cook until the veggies are soft. Carefully decant the liquid from the shells, save this broth and throw the shells away. After boiling for a few minutes, remove from the heat, and allow to cool and let the shells settle. You take the coquina and rinse them well with cold water, put them into a pot with enough water to cover and bring to a boil. If you find enough live ones, you can make a kind of marine biologist’s Stone Soup. In fact, their scientific name, Donax variabilis, refers to the variable color of the shells. Some past readers may recall that I did my doctoral dissertation on the rhythmic behavior of mole crabs.Ĭoquina occurs in large numbers along the beach, and if you don’t find them alive, you find their colorful shells. Both move up and down the beach face with the tide. Two common prey are small bean clams, or coquina, and the sand crabs, which are also known as mole crabs. You can watch as they carefully poke and pick at the sand. Often there are shore birds, maybe a sanderling, or one of the gulls, or maybe a ruddy turnstone darting up and down the beach in synchrony with the waves. There is so much to see if we just take a few minutes to look closely at the activity. It would have been so nice to stroll along the hard-packed sand down near the water’s edge. That had been my original intention until COVID-19 changed all of our plans. Was it really March last week and was it really 90 degrees? Sounds like a great time to escape to the beach.
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