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.—-
