Another cold morning, but gray and overcast, like snow weather, but no wind and the tide is way out. Very small ripples are slowly rolling in, so small that where the water meets the sand, there’s no motion towards shore. Traffic noise from a distant highway can be heard because it’s so still. The traffic noise is a constant rumble punctuated, as they say, with periodic big truck sounds .
One lone heron ahead and downstream of us – Daisy, Izzy and myself – lifts off from the shore and heads further down. Later it, or a relative further out, heads upstream about the same time as two canada geese head the opposite way. Those two may have been part of the trio that went up yesterday, perhaps taking a relative home.
A small woodpeker surprises me by its nearby appearance on some vegetation covering a piece of riverbank that had collapsed onto the beach months ago. It’s black, white and red; probably a piliated type. It makes a peeping sound as it flits around and soon disappears on up the bank. Woodpeckers like kingfishers have a built-in 50 yard rule where they never let you get any closer than that and it’s rare I manage to surprise them as I round some piece of the bank or big tree stump.
The dead rat/muskrat is gone with no evidence of who or what removed it. The tide did not come up that high, but where it did the water was splashing a lot because just above the faint high water line are little splashes of sand tossed on top of the smoother base.
No evidence of the robin from yesterday is visible around the now-exposed tree on the mud flat. Nothing washed up on the beach, either. That was a strange event, it’s flight into the river.
The dogs only follow partway today for some reason. They often lag behind, checking all the places around the piers where other dogs have been, then catching up as I reach the turnaround. While Daisy was with us at the beginning, only Izzy appears as I head back. Sometimes he also heads home on his own. Today he was barking at some black bird or crow on the beach before I arrived.
Not far from where the dead rat had been there was a bad smell for several days that seemed to come from the bank or one of several patches of vegetation at its base. The dogs even nosed around the bank as if they noticed it, too. It’s the first time for such a strong sewer-like stench and it could be another dead animal, but one isn’t obvious and the smell discourages much searching.
Some wood burning is also noticeable today because the air isn’t moving enough to disperse it. This isn’t the pleasant leaf burning odor, but a more acrid smell caused by smoldering wood.
Eight or nine far out tongers are present and a nearer single moving dredger. The tongers are always clustered with a couple outcasts at either end. It looks like a bunch of guys having a bull session while working. Perhaps the outcasts really are being left out.
On the way back some strange rumblings can be heard lasting for half a minute or so. They happen a couple times and can finally be identified as big rocks being dumped, probably for a riverbank protection project. The rumbling is very distinctive. These rocks oftentimes weigh a quarter ton and make such low rumblings that if you are next to the truck you can feel the sounds as well as hear them.
