I thought these colourful seashells, pebbles and seaweeds in their little bowls looked good enough to eat!
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Jessica's Nature Blog 
Love these pictures! I beachcomb most days here in the East Neuk of Fife and can’t resist picking up shells and pebbles; I was particularly interested in the brown and white striped dog whelks as I have only found about half a dozen with striped bands in years of collecting shells. Here they are mainly plain white or cream. One book I consulted said they acquired brown bands as a result of eating mussels but as mussels are also present here I can’t think why I wouldn’t have seen more of this colouring.
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Love the way youve presented these…to put like with like accentuates their differences. I usually dump all my shells together.
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What a pretty display!
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Thank you, Christine. I have read somewhere that the colour bands on dog whelk shells are genetic but I am afraid that I can’t put my hand on the reference right now. It is difficult to say what is the truth of the matter without doing a bit more research. It might be a combination of factors. The striped dog whelk shells I photographed here were found at Whiteford Point on the north Gower coast where there are plenty of mussels – but that is also true of Rhossili at the end of the Gower peninsula where the shells are mostly cream and yellow. However, there are also greater numbers of barnacles at Rhossili so maybe the dog whelks eat those preferentially.
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Thank you, Jo.
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Thank you, Clare. I just display the shells in different ways as the fancy takes me – but whatever way, they are all beautiful and interesting.
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Very effective Jessica. They do look very attractive and food-like.
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The seaweed did look particularly appetising and the seashells often resemble boiled sweets like humbugs and the like.
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