Walking the Beach #40 (Apr 07)

Just before the walk it was a beautiful sunlit morning. By the time of the walk it had clouded up and even sprinkled a little. But the air is very still and cool, just right for walking and enjoying all the fresh greenery mixed with flowers. Hardly any pollen, either.

It’s an off-beach day, again, being Sunday. This time we made it down to the beach at the end of the neighborhood; no one out this early on a weekend although the normally empty house at the end has a half dozen cars parked around it. The tide is high this morning, so no chance of heading down river along the beach.

Tidal changes are peculiar. I’d expect a regular cycle, but it always seems irregular, and the reason is that they depend on both the moon and sun location. Even though the moon has the strongest affect, the sun also plays a part. So when they work together we have the highest (high-high) or lowest (low-low) tide. The rest of the time the result varies. Wind is also a major factor. A high-high tide combined with wind, especially a northeaster or hurricane, can cause significant damage to our riverbank if they stick around for for several days.

At the other end of the neighborhood our usual access point on the beach allows us only a short walk because of dogs and people. One even reaches us and Izzy chases him off even though he is at least four times bigger. He was a very friendly dog, too, so Izzy was being a little s..t.

Rather large, slow waves are rolling straight in despite the lack of breeze. The waves look like they are the result of a large boat that passed by far out in the water. None are visible, so the passage had to be some tens of minutes in the past.

A small piece of whale bone fossil has washed up. It’s only a sliver, a couple inches long, inch wide and half inch thick; rough all over with no smooth surface on any side to show it’s at the outer surface.

Folks are preparing boats for movement to a slip or pier. No oyster boats are on the water and no planes in the air. The tent caterpillars, however, are making themselves. It looks like they leave the nest when nearby vegetation is gone and browse themselves along until a suitable place to destroy can be found.—-

 

Walking the Beach #39 (Apr 07)

 Saturday routine today with addition of one German Pointer. The morning started off clear and calm with a comfortable temperature, but turned overcast early on. We first walked the access road to the end of the neighborhood, but too many people were around for us to reach the beach, there, and big dogs alerted soon after our arrival on the beach at the other end of the neighborhood where we normally access it.

During the night we had two inches of rain. It had washed many small channels in the bank and at one place sand had been removed down to the clay layer out to the waterline.

No oyster boats are out. No contrails are visible, of course. One commercial jet again flys over on a flight path to the local airport. The air is more clear, but still not what I’d expect after heavy rain.

The water appears to be receding from high tide of perhaps an hour earlier. Although no breeze can be felt or appears to disturb tree tops, waves are slowly rolling ashore for some reason. No breeze normally allows more bugs to annoy walkers, but none are out at all this morning. No birds, either.  One eating-sized blue crab, deceased, is laying at the high tide mark.  I didn’t check to see if it was male or female.  Also a fist-sized chunk of whale bone fossile is near the waterline.  It looks somewhat like porous cement or pumice.

We return to the main access road over the small creek that flows out the tongue of land covered with Cyprus trees. Debris in the creek indicates water was high for awhile. The flow is still heavier than yesterday. The water is clouded with suspended silt runoff despite the very gentle slope and much wetland type vegetation to cause a tortuous flow path.

Ditches along the access road are full of water which makes the German Pointer happy.  A couple frogs are making use of the water, too.  Everything is lush, this being the second good rain in a week to speed spring growth. All our lawns will leap upward during the next few days.

The tent caterpillars are on the move. They appear on the roadway in places where no nests are apparent in nearby bushes and trees. They seem to migrate long distances, especially for caterpillars. I’m seeing them crawl up the sides of our house and in many landscaping plants, again with no apparent nearby nests. A neighbor thinks the winds help blow the caterpillars about.

A white tail deer walks away from us up the opposite side of one field about seventy five yards away. When we return one neighbor with the highest grass is slowly making headway mowing tall wet grass to catch up with Mother Nature for the moment. —

Walking the Beach #38 (Apr 07)

Weather is better this morning, though still breezy, cloudy and humid. Less wind means lower tide level, but still almost high enough to prevent passage around the fallen tree. We just manage, but are stopped by another rough spot about fifty yards short of the turn around place.

The cormorant we saw yesterday appears at the low pier again, and flys off towards the lighthouse base. No other large birds are around today. Some small ones do appear around the big promontory. A small flock of what may be swallows swoop about. They don’t quite have the shape, but fly in a small loose flock that moves about like swallows. They also make a sound that’s like a short mechanical raspberry, or one or those noise makers that you twirl around, or the sound of a playing card held against bicycle wheel spokes.

Only two oyster boats are working and a small navy ship, perhaps a LST, is heading downstream.

Two types of biting flies are now about. One looks deceptively like a medium sized house fly but causes a quick slap after a few seconds on a patch of bare skin. The other is almost too small to see, is about a sixteenth of an inch long and narrow, like a skinny, short pencil mark. They’re only noticeable when they bite and that’s what attracts your attention to the location. Neither leave an obvious mark or lasting sting once removed, but do hold your attention while in action. The dogs seem to be well-protected by their fur, even short hairs.

One jetty is made of the large concrete blocks stacked two high.  Sand on the upriver side is six inches from the top.  On the downriver side it’s almost two feet lower and is recently being eroded back towards the bank so that now there is a small sand cliff just even with the last blocks closest to the bank.  Much more sand removal will allow water to get around the end and we’ll just have to see what happens then; da, daa, da dum!—-

 

Walking the Beach #37 (Apr 07)

We’re in the midst of an “easter”, if that’s a northeaster without the north part. The wind’s blowing into the shore at least ten mph and while we are about mid-tide, based on a high water mark, the wind has driven waves and waterline further ashore so we’re only able to make it to the fallen tree obstacle and have to turn back.

Of course the crashing waves make most of the sound and even the sounds of the romping German Pointer through the surf don’t come across. He doesn’t care and just enjoys the deeper water chasing thrown sticks as we go and return. Where his feet touch down there may be a smooth surface; windrows of large, coarse, broken shells have been deposited along much of the beach a few feet above the waterline.

No oyster boats are out and the water is pretty choppy, as expected. It’s overcast, still really hazy, and only about fifty-five degrees compared with yesterday’s seventy, certainly a change from no-shirt weather of the previous day. A jet liner passes overhead on the way out judging from the sound coming through the clouds.

The low damaged pier is just before the big tree obstacle. As we approach the pier a lone cormorant flys off towards the light house base. This is where the dead one appeared on the beach a few weeks ago. Sometimes the lighthouse base is covered with black colored birds, but it isn’t apparent until binoculars are used. It’s likely that the birds are cormorants. They do gather together in desirable locations.

A raptor comes down the beach carrying a strand or two of nest-building material. It heads into the river and in the direction of the lighthouse base. A raptor nest should be big enough to see with binoculars, but none appears to be there. While the location is suitable, nearby boat traffic may be too active, but we’ve seen a nest on pilings that are pretty close to a ferry landing, so the raptor may have been heading for the opposite shore.

We meet our distance requirement on the return by using the access road to the beach at the other end of our neighborhood. As we start back a squawking blue heron flies overhead in pursuit of a hawk or eagle. It appears the herons have a nest in the neighborhood and the raptor is too close.—-

Walking the Beach #36 (Apr 07)

Another warm day and similar tide to yesterday’s. A gentle breeze is coming up the river or from the south also like yesterday. Airborne haze is the heaviest we’ve seen this spring, consistent with the warmer temperature and limited air movement. Yesterday we had a nice heavy shower for perhaps a half hour and you’d expect the air to be clear today. The rain may have added moisture to the air, but the grayish haze is heavier towards the James River Bridge with its traffic than up river around the reserve fleet, so plain old air pollution seems a likely reason.

Where we start the walk is beside a tongue of land that’s populated with cypress trees and a small creek. Where the land meets the river is a tiny bank about, probably a foot and half high. The creek makes a noise as it drops over this ledge, which is audible for about fifty yards down the beach, making it the biggest source of sound other than our German Pointer pounding through the water. Other river noise is non-existent this morning.

Insect populations are on the rise. A few weeks ago a small scattering of black flies similar to the love bugs of Florida that cause a seasonal mess down there, were scooting about along the waterline staying close to the ground. Today they have been replaced by several types of flying ants which are swarming. We’ve had several of the tiny types in our house. Here on the beach are a few larger cousins. Some may be termites because all types come out this time of year.

It looks like seven oyster boats are out. They can be stacked throwing the count off by a couple, but seven seems accurate, and they are in the usual area just above the lighthouse base.

We flush one mature eagle from the trees on the way up, stop by the pull-up tree for some exercise going and coming, and see more aircraft than normal. Seven passenger flights fly over mostly outbound from the airport area. Two fly inbound. The outbound flights are at a much higher altitude by the time they reach us. One we don’t see sounds like a jet fighter from the louder engine. Contrails, in addition, number just two this morning. The sky is almost cloud free, but the haze overhead can obscure the smaller contrails, so two is a conservative count.

By the time we return Izzy is hot enough to finally walk a short ways in the water at the very edge. He even drinks a little of the river, so this is definitely the hottest day this year we’ve had on the beach. The pointer, though, spends all his time in the water and is perfectly comfortable.

Two raptors, either young eagles or falcons or hawks, are cruising over the river. One catches a fish that’s almost too big to carry, or not grasped very well, judging from the manner of flying. Then the second one dive bombs the first causing it to drop the fish and they tussle some in the air before the second flys off a ways. These two may be the same ones that have been hanging out around our house. I hear and see them during the day and they seem to travel as a pair.

No small shore birds accompany us today. The one I saw a couple days ago may have been a plover. It was on the waterline near us several times over several days.

The bodies of two young blue crabs and pieces of a third have washed ashore.  I expect this signals the beginning of the crab season.  A tiny live land crab showed up about a week ago, but it was probably from some nearby wetlands.  They don’t normally appear along the beach.—-

Walking the Beach #35 (Apr 07)

Today we have a German Short Haired Pointer with us which we are dog sitting for a week. He’s quite active and prevents any chance of getting as close as Izzy and I could previously to any birds.

The weather is warming up, almost past short sleeves to no shirt temperatures. No breeze either so I’m pretty warm by the time we finish.

The tide is mostly out making a clear path for us, but also shallower water for the Pointer who could swim the distance we walk and not notice any fatigue. The lack of breeze allows the water to make practically no noise when it reaches the shore. The splashing dog masks most other sound.

We have eight oyster boats in the same general area, but strung out a bit. The sky is partly cloudy and a few contrails are visible. No commercial jet liner makes an appearance today.

We startle a single Blue Heron at the beginning and then have a pair fly by a short time later. They appear to be cavorting a little, so this may be a mated pair, something I’ve not seen before. Over the last ten years they only appear singly along the river unless the food supply is abundant enough to attract a small flock.

No eagles today, but two hawks or falcons have been cruising the sky and squawking a lot. One of them catches a fish in the river then flys in our direction but has trouble deciding where to land with its catch because we are near the most favored places. He finally heads inland, but has a large enough fish that it takes some work to clear the trees.

One small spot in the sand is disturbed, sort of churned up and topped with a few fish scales. It looks much the same as the area by the fallen tree at our turnaround mark where no tracks seem evident. It may be that both places have been occupied by raptors eating their prey. Or, perhaps raccoons do night fishing. —-

Walking the Beach #34 (Apr 07)

 It’s Sunday and I planned to just use the access road towards the highway, but Izzy wanted to immediately take the opposite direction, towards the last house in our neighborhood where the road ends at the beach. So we go that way through the woods, which is a nice segment. When we reach the beach the tide is pretty low allowing us to walk downriver by that route.

It’s a cloud-free day, very calm with no breeze and no boats on the water. It’s too cool to wear a short sleeved shirt at the start and just right by the time we finish. Three contrails are present in the sky.  The jet passenger liner we see about this time crosses the river towards the airport.

We make it about half way down the beach because no dogs are around, but turn around before there is time for them to arrive. The sinkhole in the sand by the one jetty is now about two feet across at the top, but only a foot deep, for now.

Had we made it to the usual turn around on the beach we would probably see a place where some animal has scratched around in the sand well back from the waterline and next to a fallen tree that has a root ball up on the bank about twenty feet high. I think raccoons or possums use the tree as a path to the beach where something is done in the sand. The disturbed area is a couple feet across and not deep.  No obvious paw prints can be seen to help tell what animal is responsible.

This area is where the large limestone chunks are found. The biggest gathering is at a place where a deep V is carved in the bank down to the beach with a bank height of some twenty feet. A small stream flows out of the notch and a large piece of soil is also lying on the beach made up mostly of the limestone material. Eight or nine separate large-to-medium sized limestone boulders are scattered about nearby. The largest is some eight feet square while the medium pieces are the size and basic shape of a car’s wheel (with tire). This material looks to be made entirely of one substance, the limestone. No shells or other stuff are embedded in it.

On up the beach a short ways are scattered a few more pieces of the same material, several of which are also large. Mixed in with this are some medium sized chunks of cemented shell material. The binding material may also be limestone. These seashell chunks increase in size near the big promontory, but I can’t detect a source or sources up the bank. It may be that loose soil is mixed in and washes away once chunks are on the beach. In addition, many small nodules in marble, golf ball and tennis ball sizes are scattered over much of the way along our path. Some are sharp-edged like the big chunks, but some are very rounded and appear to be made by the limestone accumulation process seen in caves.

Only a couple ducks are on the water or moving about above it. Haze in the air is increasing and that fits with the still air. It’s very quiet this morning with slow, small wavelets lapping against the shore.

 The pollen count is low so no accumulation shows along the waterline. The last high tides have not retreated from the ones that reached the bank, each leaving its own small ridge line when it retreated. —

Walking the Beach #33 (APR 07)

It’s Saturday and we only make about a hundred yards on the beach before encountering an old black Labrador Retriever that comes for some weekends and Izzy hates. That goes well…

After dragging Izzy off we head for the neighborhood access road to complete our walk.

On the way back we have to cross one jetty made of those one-ton concrete blocks and at one point the sand collapses under my foot along one side. Sand had accumulated up to the top of the blocks on that side, but was below the bottom by six inches on the other and underlying rock support was visible. So what happens is dry sand settles into any openings between the rocks under the bottom. High tides wash against the low side and slowly remove accumulated sand. Voids can occur in the sand on the high side that collapse when any weight is applied or even the weight of the sand.

Only a lone oyster boat is out this morning. It looks like the same fellow with the oyster tongs that was out yesterday, and in the same place, too.

It’s clear and hazy, on the cool side but comfortable, and no breeze.

Since we are in the country the walk up the access road is pleasant and uneventful. I can hear a half dozen different bird sounds in the trees and bushes. A single engine propeller plane flys over, a single tiny contrail appears and the glint of a high-flying jet can be seen without a contrail.

The tent caterpillars are sunning themselves in large numbers on the outside their tents that are in the sunlight.—

Walking the Beach #32 (Apr 07)

The beach has washboard abs today. The last high tide reached the river bank again and during the process left ripples of sand along a strip from the top down about eight feet before smoothing out the rest of the way to the water.

We’re about mid tide at the moment with more debris evenly scattered across the smoothed and rippled sand than yesterday. It’s easier to look for interesting items in this nicely distributed display and a small piece of fossil whalebone shows up as soon as I start looking  after reaching the beach. This part of the beach produces the only whale fossil I’ve found, a distance about one hundred yards long. The piece is four inches long and split lengthwise. If intact it would be round and about two inches across. It’s stained a dark red from mineral iron. A little further on another a smaller piece appears, just a flat fragment a couple inches long and the same color.

Not long after we moved into this neighborhood a neighbor told us a whale skeleton lay in the water just offshore where I’ve now found several pieces of bone. A barely visible long, log-like thing in the water seemed to be what was suppose the skeleton. However, at low-low tide we could see the thing was actually just a piece of driftwood. Still these pieces and the story told by a guy several houses downstream about pulling a huge whale vertebrae out of the bank at the beach level, indicate there may be large pieces waiting to be discovered.

I’ve made a pretty close examination of the bank along the walk where very dense collections of fossils exist to see if anything other than very common mussel, oyster and clam shells are present. That’s all I’ve ever seen. Even the small conical shells are not there. Instead they show up in other areas of gray or blue clay with a very small distribution of tiny shells, including sections of tube worm shell. Sometimes a handful cluster of the conical shells mixed with the clay are present as the only exception. And coral, the branch type and usually snow white, though seen scattered very thinly down the entire beach, never shows up embedded in the bank. It must come from somewhere upstream.

The weather is excellent; just cool enough for a walk; clear except for several distant cirrus clouds; hardly any breeze, and even the pollen count is down.

Five oyster boats are strung out a short distance above the lighthouse station. A sixth is downstream past the station base, also a short distance. Upstream about a mile is a seventh, a small boat I can see through the binoculars, with one guy using oyster tongs. By the time we are on the return loop the boats around the lighthouse base have reached eight, but the one guy upstream is still slogging away on his own.

Only one tiny jet contrail appears during the entire time Izzy and I are on the beach. However, a lone jet fighter can be heard going over; never seen, though. Also, downstream a jet liner slowly passes over the river on its way to a landing. A lone helicopter appears from over our side of the river. A little later it looks like the same one appears from the same area, again. It happens again ten minutes later and I look more closely this time. It has Air Force markings and a long nose like a gunship, but doesn’t appear to be camouflaged. It heads for the opposite shore and never turns while it’s in sight. Then another appears and looks like the others, but too soon for the previous chopper to have circled around. There must be several strung out in a long line. Only one more takes this route.

Just a little bird activity, almost like yesterday. A raptor, perhaps a peregrine falcon, which inhabits this region and is about the right size, flys along the river out aways. We startle a blue heron from up in the trees (unusual) along the bank when we come around the promontory. A little tan shore bird leapfrogs along the waterline for a few minutes and two doves do the same along the beach about the same time.

A red rock about twice the size of my fist catches my eye near the water because of a depression that contains the imprint of a mussel shell. The rock bears no other shell marks and right next to it on the sand is a small piece of similar rock with a similar imprint, but raised. They fit together making this an interesting find to keep.

The high tides have been removing much loose soil from the new dislodged chunks of river bank. It doesn’t take long and may be indicative of how much the bank can be altered by a storm that batters the bank with waves for a day or two. —-

Walking the Beach #31 (Apr 07)

The northeaster is finally over and wind is practically gone, but it’s cooler today. Only a few clouds were around earlier, but now we have a moderate overcast in three layers. Without the wind the water is pretty quiet and background sounds come through, mostly bird life.

The tide is high, but not so as to prevent our passage by the big fallen tree. A previous high tide reached the bank in a few places leaving a wet line where the water wicked up. It also brought in more sand to smooth and fill as it passed. In some places a trough exists behind the last place sand was deposited. Water pooled there before seeping out through the sand. A broad smooth expanse of wet sand evenly spotted with bits of shells shows no new tracks, yet, and it is hard packed enough that our passing leaves little evidence.

More birds are around, but mostly in singles. A lone eagle hops from tree to tree as we approach. Another raptor of unknown type searches over the river looking for a fish to target. A small tan-backed shore bird works along the beach with us for awhile. When he flies it is just inches over the water and only flaps its wings in short spurts so that I’d swear it shouldn’t stay aloft. A single kingfisher hops back and forth over us a couple times near our turnaround point. A single woodpecker can be heard working on an overhead tree at one point.

In one place the previous high tide dissolved some red clay and spread it along our path over the beach. It turns out to be very soft and a couple inches thick when I step onto it, a gooey surprise. Only wear old shoes you don’t care about on these walks. It doesn’t stick to Izzy’s paws, just shoes!

Two places on the riverbank more large chunks of soil and subsoil have tumbled from the bank to the beach. These are at our big promontory and on each side of the gooey clay place. Each is a pickup truck size load of debris. They’re easy to overlook as they blend in with the irregular nature of the bank.

Five oyster boats are mid river and sort of clustered together, but not so close to the lighthouse base as before.

It finally dawns on me that the stuff I think is coral and looks like light fabric bunched up and petrified is more likely limestone deposited in the same way that stalactites and stalagmites are made. It may even have been deposited on top of fossilized coral so there is a mix of the two materials. I finally found a piece that’s a good example and small enough — about ten inches square and an inch thick — to carry home. —-