They team on the beach in summer. When wet, they shine like tumbled gems in a pink-marble sand setting. Poets, painters, essayists and others have found challenges in trying to capture their presence with accuracy, but it’s an effort worth pursuing. If you love the beach, then communicating to others about these little workers will be second nature. If you are new to the beach, you’ll discover their luxury is in their abundance and their plentiful numbers signal a healthy beach environment. They should never be taken for granted.
In the vernacular, they’re pronounced simply as, “dough-knacks,” and they can be found from north of Cape May, New Jersey, down to the Florida Keys. They can be found around the Gulf and along the shores of Mexico, and around Venezuela. Their cousins can be found down to Tierra del Fuego. The species can be found along the coasts of Europe, Africa, India, Thailand, Australia and the Pacific Islands. They tumble in the surf. They are the “little beans,” the “chip-chips,” that wiggle underfoot while beach waves recede.
They are beach dwellers. Each has a “small beard” and a siphon that lies just above the sand’s surface in pools of water, or flat on the sand while actively feeding in the “swash-zone.” They colonize almost exclusively in the highly dynamic wet to dry areas of the beach where waves rush up and fall back beneath the next knee-high breakers and the smooth ankle washers. Watching them can be entertaining and finding large active beds can be an education for any age.
They are Donax variabilis, the coquina clam, and their domain is the seawater uprush and backwash. In some areas along the First Coast, the high energy environment of a tumbling surf inhibits a good foothold, but along the broad stretches of Ponte Vedra Beach, their movements command the sand at the waterline between waves. The Sanderlings, Ruddy Turnstones, and Willets seem to notice them first, followed quickly by beachgoers and curious kids puzzling at their quick burrowing in this intertidal zone. The birds time their hunts perfectly with incoming waves trying to snatch the tiny, colorful clams before they disappear.
The entire process signals a healthy beach, a very healthy beach. Disruption and the absence of these tiny bivalve mollusks can send alarms. They are a classic part of the local ecosystem and are considered an indicator species for a healthy beach habitat.
Habitats are important. Filter-feeders are important. It’s what makes the beach, “the beach.” For anyone visiting, the presence of these shellfish is more than just part of a nostalgic experience, it’s proof of life in a living environment. The slow summer flats that often form the sloughs in PV can play host to an abundance of sand dwellers caught in the long pools running parallel to the beach separating sandbar from shore.
In these warm pools, beachgoers can discover concentrated ecosystems. Study them. Watch them. Learn from the occasional stingrays, trapped jellyfish, minnows of any number of varieties; seek out the “Emerita talpoida,” and along the edges, observe the great abundance of Donax. When you find a bed of them, walk around it. “Leave them be,” Mrs. Veal taught us. You will know it when you see it. Any small hand excavated low spot next to a lounger near the water line will suffice as an introduction to coquina clams. But leave the beds alone. They create the coquina horns, and those need protection.
In the 1970s, Donax soup was popular with some of the much older Ponte Vedrans who enjoyed it regularly. The dish was more of a broth that when creamed and served on rice, made a summer companion for surf caught fish. In PV in the ’70s, it was not unusual, that when the conditions were right, to come across taut-lined sport reels secured in vertical tubes driven into the beach sand south of the Club. Sport fishing was a hallmark of the Ponte Vedra experience.
But it was the Donax that most kids visiting the beach for the first time would notice and point them out to the adults. Explanations through direct observation were the benchmarks passed from local to visitor and the Donax were always found on the easiest part of the beach to walk on after a wave recedes. The tiny air bubbles that pop up from the sand when a wave covers the area are an indicator. The clams quickly open their shells to filter-feed on plankton and other organic material. They close and burrow back down when the water retreats. It's rapid, synchronized, and we’ve all seen it, but paying attention to it and understanding why it’s important is another matter entirely.
For the colorist or the litterateur, the palette defines the Ponte Vedra experience with vibrant, pinks, yellows, purples, blues, whites and mauves. But the field of “literaturitarian” is so greatly underdeveloped that the role of pendant is far from established. Best time to observe? Mid-tide to low tide as the tide is changing. Donax migrate with the tide and the muscular foot on each helps with repositioning in the optimal swash zone. For the hands-on experience, scoop a handful of wet sand and hold it gently just beneath the water’s surface. You may feel the Donax moving and beginning to burrow between your fingers.
They are harmless and the sensation is worth the experience. There is so much to discover through exploration and observation on Ponte Vedra Beach that one visit is never enough time. Start with the coquina clams. Follow their story as a species and their importance to the natural history, and the built history, of the First Coast, and it will make all the difference in the world in understanding this smartly casual place of all places, Ponte Vedra Beach.
