#40 Badass Parents and Peacocks

Beth M. Grigg
Jan 15, 2022
6 min read

My mom introduced me to the wonders of nature and the ocean at an early age. On our summer vacations on Cape Cod, she would tiredlessly teach us about marine life and would make searching for sea treasures fun.

Every year, we dilligently picked our favorite shells of the summer for her to include in a sand plaster casting to be hung on our walI back home. During the year, I would run my fingers over the shells in the casting, and wish I was back at the beach on those wonderful vacations.

Then we moved to Marblehead where many evenings after dinner, she would suggest that we walk to the beach. We explored all the Marblehead beaches, but my favorite was Preston Beach with it's everchanging tidepools.

We would scurry over the giant rocks, trying to be the absolute first to discover a new shell or sea animal. And when we found one, it was thrilling. She would celebrate our cleverness and teach about what we found. I still remember seeing sea anemone, star fish, the occasional sea urchin and lots and lots of barnacles (which were my very favorite animals for a while). When we found a special treasure, we brought it home and placed it on Mom's special shelves which were dedicated solely to shells.

Mom made looking for and learning about sea life fun, and I have always been fascinated by the ocean. Now that I live by the ocean again, I never tire of sea life treasure hunting. I love being the first one on the beach in the morning and looking to see what washed up during the night. I have found incredible creatures over the past year -- some I still can't identify.

Mom asked to do a Badass Adventure with me. I said, "Of course. I'll do whatever you want!". And she said, "I want to go with you to the beach to go shell searching".

Well...you don't have to ask me twice!

However, this adventure was a long time coming. It's not an easy thing to plan with them living far enough away to make an early morning beach visit difficult, but not impossible. But we took a chance and decided on this weekend since the tides were low and wintertime seems to bring interesting treasures to the shore.

We could not have picked a better weekend for this adventure. The beach was blanketed with shells and sea life. When I say blanketed, I mean absolutely covered. I saw things I have never seen before and was like a kid at Christmas with the excitment to be able to share the treasure hunt with my amazing parents.

One of my goals for this year is to learn more about marine life and oceanography. So I'm going to share some tidbits of info I learned about the creatures we saw and channel Mom's delight in teaching others about the ocean.

SHELLS & SEA CRITTERS

So what did we see?

Big shells, small shells, shells that were still alive, shells that were super dead, colorful shells, communities of shells liviwng on one host shell.

Moon snails, cockle shells, limpets, slipper shells, jingle shells, whelks and scallops.

And I saw my first ever Long-Spined Urchin!

And we keep seeing these pink things, but I'm not entirely sure what they are. They feel firm...mostly. Sometimes not so much. They are smooth...kind of. Kind of looks like a blob of fat but feels more like a really old hard boiled egg. If anyone knows what they are, you'll get a gold star if you fill me in!

Many of these shells have cousins that live in the icy waters of Massachusetts, but Florida ones tend to be spinier, more colorful, and flashier!

SCALLOPS

The scallops were out in full force, and clicked open and closed as we walked by.

Did you know that scallops can swim by opening and closing their shells?

Mom taught us back when we were kids that scallops have two rows of blue eyes, but I never got to see them until I got to the Florida Gulf. Their eyes look like irridescent seed beads, and I stared deep into their eyes until they got bored of me and clamped closed.

CRABS!

The crabs were hanging out by the water's edge and so incredible to look at. If I am doing my research right, we saw calico crabs, spider crabs, a purse crab and what I think was a Red Dromid claw. I think we also found a stone crab claw but I didn't get a pic. Darn..

BLUE CRAB

But the winner of the day was this big old gnarly blue crab I named Norman.

Norman wasn't having his best day and looked to be super dead. He has a shell wedged tightly in his claws but wasn't moving in the slightest. No wiggles, no movement...nothing.

So I picked him up to look him over -- and to take a few pics -- when suddenly he reached around and twacked at me with his claw. This boy was alive and wanted to get down ASAP. So I obliged and brought him back into the water.

Convinced he was brought back to life, I happily said goodby and walked away, only to find him flatlined again on my walk back. I think he did his Hail Mary and then gave up the ghost.

When I got home, I had to research more about Norman. Here's what I learned:

The scientific name for blue crabs is Callinectes sapdius, which means “beautiful savory swimmer.
The blue colour of the blue crab's claws comes from a blue pigment called alpha-crustacyanin and a red pigment called astaxanthin.
When you cook a blue crab, the blue pigment in their claws is deactivated by the heat, which means that they turn red.
They'll eat anything: fish, shells, and other blue crabs.
They are often referred to as soft shelled crabs since you can eat their shell.
Scientists believe that if they live in good conditions, they would have a lifespan of 8 years.

HORSESHOE CRABS

Now, let's talk about the horseshoe crabs that covered the beach. These special cuties are so gnarly looking with their long "tail", crablike body and weird gill clusters. Get ready for some super cool facts about these beauties:

They pre-date the dinosaurs! The oldest known horseshoe crab species, (Lunataspis aurora) was discovered by scientists in 2008 and is estimated to be nearly 450 million years old.
They are not really crabs but are more related to spiders or ticks.
They are not dangerous and their tails don't "sting". The tails are used to help them flip back over if they find themselves sunny-side up.
Adolescent horseshoe crabs like to swim upside down -- just for fun!
They have 9 eyes and have insanely good vision.
As they are growing up, they have to leave their own shell behind and grow another. They do this typically 16 times until they reach maturity.
In the late 1950s, a physician at Johns Hopkins discovered that you can use the amoebocytes found in horseshoe crab blood to test the safety of vaccines and other drugs.

OCTOPUS

And we saw some octopuses again-- these little pygmy dudes are fascinating. One alive boy clung his tentacle to my finger, while Dad found a super dead, wrinkled, dehydrated dude high up on the shoreline (that's the one I'm holding). He felt kind of like a combination of a fruit roll-up and a jello jiggler.

STARFISH

Saw a few starfish. One was particulary spectacular and posed for me. I drew him in a pair of dungarees just for fun. You're welcome.

MY BADASS PARENTS

So many more incredible parts to the day, but the very best was seeing Mom and Dad, and experiencing this incredible morning with them.

Plus they brought me tons of homemade dinners to put in my freezer. Aren't they jsut the freaking best!!!

Love you so much, Mom and Dad.

And Mom...thank you for giving me your love of the ocean. It's one of my very favorite things in my life, and I owe that to you. xoxoxo

NIGHTTIME PEACOCK HUNTING

Earlier in the week, I had another peculiar Florida adventure involving wildlife. Jenn, Zee and I headed to a random neighborhood in St. Pete hoping to take a Hula Hoop fitness class (right???). Unfortunately the instructor was a no-show, but instead of heading home, we decided to go for a nighttime walk.

As we were going, suddenly Jenn stopped and said, "Hey, I remember this neighborhood. I was walking around here one day and a flock of peacocks started following me. I bet if we look, we can find them sleeping in the trees".

Game on!!!

Jenn, luckily, does a very good peacock call -- which sent Zee and me into fits of giggles every time she did one -- but it worked. Soon we heard peacocks calling back to her.

We found ourselves standing under a big tree and realizing that the black shadow near the top was a peacock! So exciting! I had no idea that peacocks could fly and that they would be able to balance themselves on the top of trees. Apparently, they take some some large leaps before finally getting airborne, and their wide wingspan enables them to travel a decent distance or reach a high tree. Who knew?

As we walked around, we saw more. Here are some photos of them -- best I could get in the dark of the night.