Walking the Beach #59 (May 07)

The day after Memorial Day weekend and it’s much warmer. Several days have passed since the last entry. One of the black snakes could be seen the next day working its way up a groove in the burned out part of the cyprus tree that leads to the heart. It seemed to be having trouble penetrating the tree and I wonder how a snake knows when a hole is too small, or if they ever get inside, eat something, and can’t get back out. The lizard being stalked that day may have survived. A good-sized one scoots about the tree as we walk by some mornings.

Just where we turn off the road to cross grass beside the wetland going to the beach we startled two deer who bound through the brush up a draw from which the creek comes that feeds this small patch of wetland. These morning because of the warming weather we are out an hour earlier so Izzy doesn’t get too hot. It looks, now, like we’ll have to make it even earlier.

The number of oyster boats has dwindled. This morning there are two. Over the three-day weekend there was just one on Saturday and it may have been a crabber.

A few dead crabs of moderate size litter the beach most mornings. Some could be repeats, so the count isn’t for new ones each time. Some of them are empty and look translucent when held up to the morning light. They are of male and female variety, the males appearing about three times as much. I identify them by the pull tabs on the bottom, the male having a long skinny tab.

The water this morning is very calm and smooth. No breeze either so we heat up more quickly. The river is also warming from the 40’s of wintertime to 72 degrees today. A slight river smell appears from time to time and isn’t as pleasant as the honey suckle. Other fragrant flowers have appeared in the area and blend with the honey suckle, though their musky scent is less appealing to me. In the still water where it meets the beach what looks like more pollen turns out to be some green algae is now growing in the warmer water.

We’ve fewer birds of late. Eagles persist high in the trees, erupting as we approach, as do the kingfishers lower down. The vultures, of course, are always with us, off and on. For several days about a dozen cruised above our home. I’ve yet to find a dead animal, by sight or smell, when this happens. Of greater concern is such a group deciding to take up a permanent roost near a home where their droppings and continued presence are not welcomed. One morning after seeing the cruise group I found five perched in several tall dead pines near a neighbors house. Another five were roosting in some tall trees another house a couple hundred yards away. Those trees were live, as if it matters.

We’ve had no rain now for several weeks or hard winds so only tidal action has smoothed the beach near the water. Closer to the river bank all sorts of tracks are accumulating. Heron tracks are the largest bird and always carefully placed. Many smaller birds drag their feet leaving tiny grooves in the sand. Rarely, when the sand is just right, very tiny beetle tracks can be found. Of course they might not be from beetles, but I can’t imagine another source.

Long, continuous mysterious grooves of several types also appear. I’ve no idea what makes any of these: snakes, lizards, crayfish, earthworms? No marks straddle any of these. More mysteries of the beach….

Speaking of mysteries, the purpose of several styrofoam floats close to the beach was resolved when several boats were tied up to them during the weekend activities.

Another mystery was the grass planted in two fields alongside our main access road. This was hay and it was cut over the last week, dried in flat windrows and bundled into round bales.

Rabbits are now coming out of the closet. Several appeared on lawns and beside driveways as we made our way from the beach back home. An unfortunate snapper turtle of medium size had also been crushed. Not a very nice ending to this walk….

Walking the Beach #58 (May 07)

A very nice walking day today. There’s a large striper bass, about four pounds, alongside the road before we reach the beach, another lost meal from an eagle. A large colony of these birds could pose a real hazard I would think.

The river is at low tide and soundless for the moment. Tidal action pushes sand up the beach and leaves heavier or bigger stuff behind when it recedes.

Several oyster boats are out for the first time in several days. A small one comes close to shore down past the promontory and the waterman shovels oyster debris overboard, something that happened once before in the same general area. The wake from his small boat (about seventeen feet long) causes surprisingly big waves.  Waterways where homes are located have strict no-wake zones because of erosion problems. It’s most significant for several homes near the ferry landing upriver from us.

On the way to the beach we cross a short piece of grass beside the strip of wetland with some cypress trees. As I pass one tree quick movement at the base catches my eye from a tiny lizard scurrying down a burn mark on the tree. Then a couple feet higher I see the head of a black snake poking out of a slot that leads into the tree; the lizard has a stalker. On the way back I check again and find two snake heads poking out of the same area. At the ground level there’s also a molted snake skin.Later in the day more evidence the snakes are out in force presents itself when two brown thrashers drive a large black snake out of small holly bush by the house. The thrashers are the size of a blue jay and must have a nest in the bush.—-

Walking the Beach #57 (May 07)

 

 

Days have passed but the beach remains. It’s Saturday, moderate tide, clear and breezy but warm from the sun. Rain, some wind-blown high tides followed by wind-blown dry days have produced beach areas that are perfectly flat and smooth, mixed with water-wrinkled, and wind-wrinkled areas.

Sand is building back up in areas where it was removed. The metal ladder exposed before is now concealed and the spots where I found the embedded tube worm fossils is now under a thin layer of sand.

No bird and no oyster boats. The boats have been missing for several days. Today only a single boat loaded with a half dozen oyster traps is on the water.

No contrails can be seen in the clear sky. Only a small two-engine commuter or executive jet passes over while we’re on the beach.

A few more Morning Glorys are out, but they never appear in profusion while the Honey Suckle does and has and the air everywhere is scented with the blossoms.

Up the access road the two fields planted with grass may be hay fields. If so, they should be mowed before long as mowing is ongoing nearby.

A walking couple I meet relate they saw a skunk near their house. Skunks seem to be slowly increasing around us just as the deer, wild turkey and raptors have been. Skunks are rabies carriers so the potential smell problem is a secondary concern.

We also swap some stories about eagles dropping food as they fly above. My story of the large fish in our flower bed that had been dropped on the roof and left a trail of fish scales to mark its path downward is topped with a live eel that crashed through overhead branches to land at their feet. They first thought it was a snake, then had to puzzle out how an eel became airborne.

They were interested in a sticky fly trap patch I’d just tried out on my hat to catch biting May or deer flies. It snared eight of them in a couple hours the first day the flies were active.

An asparagus patch I’d forgotten to check yields four big edible shoots. Six others had already bolted. The picked ones are quite nice eaten during the walk.—-

Walking the Beach #56 (May 07)

Things are just a little better today. The sun is out and the breeze blowing from downstream to cool you a lot while going downstream and a little on the return. I’d prefer the reverse: a little cooling going and more on the return when I’m warmer, but it’s better than yesterday.

With the sun out the sky has to be clear and is. However, only one oyster boat is working, and only one eagle, too. That’s on the way down. We see a single flier on the way back, too that circles around and acts like it’s looking for a meal in the water. Just as we reach the driveway another flys over from the woods to the river carrying a small branch, much smaller than yesterdays limb. It heads out over the river and trees block where it ends up.

A high tide is still with us and that’s uncool, but no obstacle.

One passenger jet passes overhead heading east and shortly another goes by heading north.

At times the air is beginning to be perfumed with honey suckle

Close to where we leave the beach I spy a long tube worm specimen that’s pretty much exposed. It’s at least three inches long. I fail again to remove it without breakage. I’m facing the bank and close to it while doing it. The waterline behind me is about fifteen feet away with the high tide. As I stand and turn to walk towards the low place in the bank where we leave the beach I see a rapidly moving black snake heading for the water. It goes right in and stays on the bottom until out of sight. It was in sight about two seconds and looked to be totally black, about eighteen inches long, but going into water indicates it should have been a water moccasin. Both have the same body style, husky versus skinny water snakes or our cute green snakes. Where we enter the beach is next to a narrow piece of wetland with a small creek and ideal location for snakes of several types, so that’s a likely source. So it’s good that I’m paying attention to where my hands and feet are being places while climbing over driftwood piles. —-

Walking the Beach #55 (May 07)

Today it’s warmer and practically no breeze.  Despite a high tide we still make it to the end and back. Waves, though small, are coming ashore in groups with hardly any water movement between times. No boats are nearby although eight oyster boats are working their usual places on the river. It seems unlikely they are causing the wave action, but they look like the wake from a boat.

A young eagle flys off as we reach the beach. It might have been making a low pass or perched on the beach. No marks are in the sand so it was probably just cruising by when we appeared.

The sky has a slight overcast but six contrails are visible. Only two are around when we reach the mid point, but six are up there by the time we finish up and two passenger jets fly over towards the airport. Meanwhile the number of boats stays the same.

The air is about as clear as it gets which means the large shipyard and James River Bridge can be seen downstream. Yesterday, despite a stiff breeze, cool weather and morning rain, the shipyard and bridge could not be seen.

The rain and tide have smoothed the sand.  As soon as we start out some tiny tracks can be seen. They aren’t from a bird and are smaller than Izzy’s. He’s a mix of boston bull terrier and chihuahua and overweight at thirteen pounds. His tracks are the size of a quarter and tend to group in two’s. The tiny tracks are about the size of a one-cent piece and appear as a groups of four. They appear and disappear the whole mile we walk and are closer to the waterline than the bank. They might be some interesting, cuddly critter like a small possum or young raccoon, but most likely it’s a rat; sorry.

As we get close to the halfway mark some larger prints without toenails appear. These are about the size of a half dollar and may be from some sort of cat. Then finally at the fallen tree, nearby, is a scruffed up area in the sand like what’s appeared before. It looks like big paws were used to do the scrabbling, but not obvious tracks are in or around that area.

On the way back a fish jumps out of the water a short ways from shore. I don’t see many, but it may be the waves make them hard to see.

An eagle flys out towards the opposite bank carrying a a long skinny branch.  This happened once before and I didn’t see where it went. This time I keep an eye on it. It appears to go out past the lighthouse base and a little downstream before landing atop of piling. By that time it might have dropped the branch because the post doesn’t look like a nest is on top of it.—-

Walking the Beach #54 (may 07)

 It’s cool, breezy, overcast and rainy this morning. We waited for the rain to stop before going out. A small batch of vultures was scattered up and down the beach where we entered. The tide was in and the only eye catching item was an undamaged red apple in the sand. Don’t know what attracted the vultures. The only boat out is a sailboat close to the opposite shore.

After a short beach trip we head up the access road again, even though we don’t see folks about on the beach this Sunday. They can come out at any time and I don’t want to have to pass through them on the way back.

A couple places in the trees and bushes do have remnants of caterpillar tents in spite of what I thought yesterday. More honey suckle blossoms are out and the air’s a little sweeter. Grass alongside the road is about three feet high. One of the fields planted with grass is just as high and several spots are twisted and flattened. One of the spots was there last weekend, but now it’s bigger and another one has appeared. Either gusts of wind are the cause, or deer have bedded down. The places are close to the road and no tracks are visible nearby, so wind mixed with recent rain must be the cause.

With greenery so lush and thick it seems that the forest floor should have a thick layer of topsoil, but it does not. Looking at the bank top along the beach is the same, very thin topsoil. It takes a hundred years worth of decayed leaves, twigs, grass and brush to make one inch of humus or topsoil. At one time this area might have had a nice layer, but not now and nothing ever like the Great Plains with many feet of it.

Two jets pass overhead above the clouds in short succession. The sounds fit fighter jets taking off from Langley AFB.

We reach the beach at the other end of the neighborhood, but are blocked by the tide and return home the way we came.—-

Walking the Beach #53 (May 07)

 

Saturday has come again and the beach portion of our walk is short. The river is very calm today. It’s low tide, almost no breeze and the water is hardly moving along the waterline. During this calmer weather different wave patterns are easily seen with large, slow waves moving in one direction and smaller ones superimposed and moving in another direction. Then there’s some rebound waves from those that reach the shore.

It rained yesterday making the air humid and producing an even greater amount of haze. We’ve varying amounts of clouds that are on the move. The predominate cover is basically high and flat for the moment.

The sand is dimpled from the rain. Remains of a medium-sized bird carcass with black feathers, probably a crow or blackbird, lies half buried.

No contrails today or airplane noises.

A barge is moving upriver. They can be seen several times each day, but this is the first time for one during our walk. Motor noise can be heard, faintly, from further downriver than the barge. For a boat it’s loud enough to be seen, but the haze seems to be obscuring the source.

Pollen has gone away for now. Over the last week the pollen count in the newspaper has been around 1 on a scale of a 100. When it was bad and pollen pools could be seen along the waterline, the count was well above a thousand.

We travel up our access road where the greenery is just as intense as last weekend, but darker. Some honey suckle blossoms are out and the damp air carries a faint scent from them. It will become stronger within days.

Another patch of asparagus is now visible near where the first one is alongside the road. The first one is larger with eleven spears, but the uncut ones are all blossomed out. The smaller one has six shoots and two can be harvested, which I do and consume en route.

Two of the four farm fields are planted with winter wheat which is half grown, though a little stunted compared with past years. The other two fields look like they were planted with grass. It’s higher than the wheat and thicker. Perhaps it’s a cover crop that will be plowed under. We’re waiting to see how many fields are planted this summer with corn due to the hype about biofuels and ethanol. Corn is commonly grown in the area, but has only been on any of these four fields one time in the last ten years. Peanuts were common for a few years, but of late only winter wheat and soybeans are grown in these fields.

All evidence of tent caterpillars is gone. The tent remnants have dissolved and limbs bare of leaves now have new growth.  No biting flies either for the moment.

Several yellow and black swallowtails are about, on the beach and the roadways. No birds can be seen although a few can be heard; nothing else of interest. —-

Walking the Beach #52 (May 07)

We’ve a high, thin overcast today so it’s basically clear, with three visible contrails. An executive jet appears from the west heading east for the airport and soon a passenger jet does the same. A couple small propeller planes can be heard at different times and one sounds pretty close, but I can’t ever spot either one.

A slight breeze starts us on our way, but dies before long. It’s humid, hazy again, and in the mid seventies so Izzy and I are both pretty warm by the time we get back. No biting flies which is good, but they plague me later in the yard once I work up a sweat. The tide is low and water so quiet the birds in the trees and dripping water along from places on the bank face are easily heard.

One eagle launches from nearby as we reach the beach and it heads downstream to a new perch atop a tree at the edge of the river bank. Our lone Blue Heron is sitting on the roof of the fancy pier, like a hood ornament. It flys off, too, as we approach. I forget the eagle until it noisily launches again from a tree directly above me.

Eight oyster boats are out. Three are grouped together near the lighthouse base and the rest are randomly scattered above and below.

The Blue Heron disappears for good, but on the way back an eagle is now perched on the fancy pier roof. Two are flying around over the river not far off and then a third launches from a tree on the bank above the fancy pier. The perched one joins those three and they all wheel about pretty close to the water at times. Two seem to be trying to do that airborne mating ritual of theirs, though almost in the water and finally one does end up there. It takes off within a minute and has no trouble getting airborne. Finally two of them head upstream and the other two downstream.

An increasing number of tracks, all bird except for Izzy and mine, are building up in the sand.   Many of the bird are from the tiny shore birds.  A group of eight are working the waterline when we return.  A few look like geese tracks though we’ve not seen the Canada Goose from several days back.  And some are from the Blue Heron which also leaves really big splashes of poop that are about six inches across.  Today we also have eight or nine dead crabs most of which were probably there yesterday.

A small piece of fossil or limestone appears at the waterline close to the halfway mark. It’s about six inches long, sort of a tan color, and looks like two parallel twigs have been dipped in batter and fried, but the broken ends show the material to be solid. It must have been part of a larger limestone formation made by flowing water.

I brought a small screwdriver along today and work for a few minutes on the tube worm shell found yesterday near the beach exit. All but a quarter inch comes away from the clay leaving me with a piece just shy of three inches. Several other promising looking pieces are poking up from the clay in this area, so I work on another for a few minutes, then leave it for tomorrow. Sometimes rain and tidal action will do your work and you just have to monitor progress each day.—-

Walking the Beach #51 (May 07)

Fog again, but it’s high this morning; or you could call it a really low overcast. Looking across the river the space between clouds and river is brightly lit like the fog is thin or breaking to let the sun through.

This is a quick walk because there are errands to be done in town today, so we don’t dawdle much. A quick stop at the pull-up tree going and coming and another stop just where we access the beach, the location of the nice piece of a cone shell from yesterday. I look closely at the clay layers of fossils all along the way to see if the larger conical shell is present, but only the tiny ones are evident. Where the conical piece appeared there are also some of the longest tube worm shell pieces, but some gentle excavating is needed to retrieve any. I’ve no idea how long an entire tube would be. A Google check showed that they can be coiled in several shapes and three inches seems to be a typical length. Ours are straight. and the long ones that are still embedded in clay are about that length, three inches.

A Blue Heron is the only bird seen the whole way. It hops ahead of us a couple times along the water line, then disappears. Just as well because the sliding doors that cover my camera lens decided to stop working making photography impossible. This happened a week earlier, too. Discussion group gossip has it that a tiny piece of grit is the usual cause. Perhaps, but various types of agitation does nothing to fix the problem and sending these things in for repairs will cost almost the same as buying another camera. The doors are easily opened, so I super glue them open which works just fine. The carrying case will now be the lens cover unless the right sized simple plastic cap can be found.  I’ve repaired and dissasembled a half dozen digital cameras and have no chance at getting at the lens cover from the inside without screwing up the lens assembly.

No aircraft can be seen this morning, but three jets pass over and one turboprop. The first jet sounded lower than any I’ve heard. It came over the bank and I ducked a little at the first sound, expecting to see it under the low fog, but fortunately it was higher.

Tide is low and water sloshing along. No breeze and the air temperature must be about seventy because I’m starting to feel warm by the time we get back.  No biting flies reappear despite the warmer air and absence of wind.

One oyster boat can be seen on the way down. A second one appears by the time we returned and you can hear a distant engine sound the whole walk that was probably coming from them.

Some pink Morning Glory blossoms are present on top of the sand and close to a bank that’s sloped near the end or start of the walk.  No other vines are on the beach except for a few dormant runners from the kudzu all around the Morning Glory’s.  So far water hasn’t been driven this far ashore, but sometime this summer we will certainly have a storm that will clear away any vegetation that has dared to creep onto this flat .

That’s it for today.—-

Walking the Beach #50 (May 07)

 

 

Fog has arrived this morning; guess yesterday’s comment about San Francisco brought it on. At least it’s warmer, almost, but not quite t-shirt weather. A little breeze blows downstream and we feel it mostly on the way back. The tide is low and something new along the edge are white suds in patches all the way down to the turnaround point. It looks like a segmented six inch roll of Styrofoam. Maybe some factory or boat dumped a box of detergent upstream. Dunno. Also along the waterline in the water is a good mix of what looks like pulverized leaves which appear periodically, but without the foam, so that’s not the cause.

Visibility is about a hundred yards. Fog usually reduces the amount of sound one can hear. Still there are aircraft sounds — some jet and some motor — coming through, periodically. Also motor sounds, probably from boats, some soft and some louder. After one period of louder sounds, a minute or two later the wave size and sound showes a marked increased. The tide is low and waves are slopping ashore, faster and louder after the boat, but generally a soft slopping, enough so water dripping from bank brink trees and bank springs can be heard dripping.

An eagle perched in a tree near where we first reach the beach starts up on our approach and flys away. A blue heron on the beach does the same, but hops down the beach, repeatedly, before finally leapfrogging over us upstream.

This is the first morning some river smells could be detected and that was near the big promontory. It’s a distinct odor associated with warm water and lots of marine life, not one I’d recommend or desired if you’re trying to sell seafood, but not very strong and only for a few minutes.

On the beach in this area was a small spot of churned sand with some fish scales. A big bird flew off into the fog as we came around the promontory. It was probably the one that ended up perching on the dead tree near the low, damaged pier close to the promontory and when it flew off I could see that it was an eagle. So eagles are probably eating meals on the beach.

Close to the turnaround point an interesting piece of limestone, or coral, appears on the beach. It’s a quarter-inch thick and saucer sized. One side is rippled. The opposite (obverse) is smooth.

The oyster bed markers made of small branches with leaves now have brown leaves instead of green. Near one of them is a piling or post with only a few inches above the water and a bird is perched atop it, probably a cormorant, but the distance is great enough that bird type is just a guess.

Fog limits our vision so I focus more on the beach and bank, mainly looking for interesting fossils. Birds can be heard, too, up in the trees, but none are visible. Close to where we leave the beach I find the bottom of one of the thin conical fossil shells that’s really big. It’s about the size of my thumb compared with the quarter-inch size of the largest specimens previously found. Unfortunately as I slowly dig it out and it comes free only half of it is present. However, these large sizes do exist and now are something to look for. —-