New Book & Shells

There are only a few types of shells you get where we live and there are a lot of them but not much variety. Here we get only scallops, cockles, razor pods, topshells and blue ray limpets.

These are really nice shells BUT that's about it. I love learning a lot about shells and thought it would be nice to see some that we don't get here.

So we bought a new book on www.amazon.com for looking at other shells around the world: Usborne Sporter's Guides SHELLS.

Its got shells all over the world.

We also bought some shells with the book and there are some really fun ones. A couple got broken in the post but there are still a lot of one we have not seen before.

Here are some of the unusual ones we dont get here in the Western Isles.

These ones are more common but they are still nice.

Some of them we get here but mostly the ones on the beach are getting smaller and smaller, except for the old shells on isolated beaches. This comes from over harvesting (for eating) in the near and distant past but hopefully there are still enough to recover if they are given a chance.

Most people don't realise how critical the little creatures are, whose shells make up the beach 'sand'.

If they are over harvested or their environment is endangered by pollution - then there will be no more of the beautiful beach sand that makes up the magnificent stretches of beaches.