Stone Crabs

Stone Crabs are how my new life began. In late summer 2004 I sent two photos of a Stone Crab to our endearing and encouraging newspaper editor via email simply to share them because the light of the sinking sun was spectacular. He liked the photos enough to publish them. Knowing that I could take equally good photos of other animals and tired of collecting seashells, I began to photograph various marine animals. Researchers throughout the country graciously identified species for me. The editor frequently published my photos. Yet I had much to learn. Within two months of leaping into this new-found adventure, I picked up a huge Stone Crab in order to rinse sand off of him to get good photos. He grasped my right index finger with both claws. I screamed for help because I could not free my finger, went to the ER for stitches, and then had an infection and a month of occupational therapy. Although I still pick up and rinse off many animals, I use better judgment. This stingray is an example. http://www.okeefes.org/Photo_Journal/May_2008/May_2008.htm. I still have not learned complete restraint as the photos of an American Alligator on this page demonstrate: http://www.okeefes.org/Photo_Journal/March_2008/March_2008.htm. I was dangerously close to it when I took the photos.

Photographing animals was only the beginning. I began collecting live specimens for aquaria and dead ones for museums and universities. At each step of my journey, I learned more. As my website grew larger with photos of marine life, my family photos were bumped to a second website, www.okeefes.info. Soon Google began to use scores, perhaps hundreds, of my photos. I began to receive requests for my photos from educational facilities such as state parks, universities, aquaria, museums -- and recently a national park. I receive photos of animals to identify and questions about animals. In the process I simultaneously learned more about photography and also became involved with coastal birds, both injured and dead. I became very involved with two animals, Horseshoe Crabs and Knobbed Whelks. Each fall I collected 50 Horseshoe Crab exoskeletons or molts that I donated to schools, aquaria and museums. One of my photos of a live Knobbed Whelk is on the cover of a book of poetry!

Over time my kitchen became a mini-laboratory. I purchased a microscope, scientific sieves for rinsing seaweed in order to extract animals, Petrie dishes and an illuminating magnifier. It enables me to find a hundred times more specimens within seaweed, on sponges and on dried sea drift that I bring home, sieve and rinse, and then dry. In containers filled with alcohol I save minute brittle stars and sea spiders. I freeze hundreds of animals such as microscopic amphipods, isopods and worms in sandwich bags with sea water to give to researchers.

People, especially children, have been the best part of my experience. Although now I only show them juvenile Stone Crabs such as the one below in the right-hand column, I share with them the variety of live specimens in my containers -- Sea Stars, Sand Dollars and Sea Cucumbers, whelks, Shark Eyes and Banded Tulips, and Spider Crabs, Sand Fiddler Crabs and Speckled Crabs. Other species are Sea Whips, sponges, Sea Pansies, Colonial and Solitary Tunicates and egg cases. I could not list everything. The joy children have holding the animals, the photos their parents take of them doing so, and what I am able to teach them about marine life have made this a wondrous experience, one that began with two photos of a Stone Crab.

I have sent boxes of specimens to educators and biologists. Below is what one educator recently wrote after using the sponges, sea stars, sand dollars, sea whips, etc. at a school.:

"I want you to know that the presentation was absolutely wonderful. The kids thoroughly enjoyed it. I wish you could have seen their faces when I told them that the specimens were theirs. They could not wait to get close to them. I took a picture of each class standing around the table with the specimens laid out. I kept a few smaller crab specimens to use with my grandson's class in preschool. The only request I have is that, if you ever get another horseshoe crab, may I please have it to give to that school. I told them the one you sent was mine and that I will take it to other schools. I promised them that if I ever got another I would bring it to them."

"I started out with one class scheduled. then two more teachers asked if I could present on the same day to theirs. I ended up with six classes and will go back next Tuesday for five more. Thanks to you it was a major success. I told them all about you and how you walk the beaches taking pictures and saving these items for schools and others. The school will be sending you a thank you for the donations and I will send the pictures after I take pictures with the other five classes next week. Thank you so much for all of your help and the generous donations of the marine specimens for this school."

This is my life. I have never had so much fun! Besides helping countless people, I experience the excitement and thrill of each new species, each good photo, and the delight of the persons that I encounter.

A Hermit Crab Takes a Walk

On May 8, 2008, I saw what looked like a Knobbed Whelk walking on Edisto Island, SC. It was moving far faster than a whelk would move. Zooming in, I saw that it was a Thinstrip Hermit Crab, Clibanarius vittatus, in an empty whelk shell. It was moving parallel to the ocean. After taking the photos below, I carried to the edge of the water.