Walking the Beach #42 (May 07)

There’s a stiff breeze blowing off the water this morning so a moderately high tide level is moved to a very high level and we only make it half way down the beach. The breeze makes walking a little cool, but comfortable.

The platform seen by the fancy pier mentioned yesterday does have a set of steps at the back.  I had thought no method of access was attached.

Waves are noisy enough to block most other sounds, but two propeller planes, one a small private and the other a large commercial or military, are noisy enough to be heard. Five contrails are in the clear blue sky and five oyster boats are out. No passenger planes are seen.

Only one young eagle appears and no other bird life during the entire walk.

Two small clusters of iris are in bloom half way down the bank where they had slid when a chunk of dirt broke loose.

An interesting piece of fossil coral washed ashore. It’s a couple inches across, roughly circular and flat, about a quarter inch thick, and made up of overlapping tubules, each slightly more than an eighth inch diameter. The color is gray and bits of sand are glued to the intersections.

I can now do six pull ups at the pull up tree.

We head towards the other end of the neighborhood to make up for the short beach walk. Izzy decides to turn off and go home as we pass our driveway. Where the road meets the beach there are a few deer tracks in the sand. Deer seem to like this area as a few tracks can often be seen on or near the beach.

A whippoorwill can be heard back in the trees along the roadway, but not seen.—-

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. —-

Wlking the Beach #30 (Apr 07)

 We are still having this northeaster. They usually come through in a single day like a general storm, but more intense and with specific wind direction. The wind part has stayed with us for three days. So it’s about twenty mph in our face when we come back up the beach, but not very noticeable on the way down.   It masks out most other sounds.

The air is acquiring its old pre-storm haze, although this may be from dust kicked up by the wind more than exhaust fumes. The wind is slowly turning the beach surface into a wind swept appearance with the start of tiny dunes in the dry area.

We’ve a few clouds in two layers. The puffy low level version of yesterday are still around and above them are now small patches of wispy thin cirrus clouds that look like that angle hair used to decorate Christmas trees.

More airplanes can be seen today. There are two big commercial passenger jets, one passing over the river upstream and the other downstream. A two-engine propeller-driven military-looking plane comes up from down river. One small, short contrail is high overhead.

One mature eagle flys off from a bank top tree as we approach.  Either a young eagle or another raptor flys out over the water carrying some twigs and seems uncertain as to where to take its load.  Perhaps our presence is the problem.

Only two oyster boats are out and look to be quite small. These may be the type where hand-held tongs are used to scoop up oysters. The boats are mid-river, as usual, but widely separated.

The tide is almost at its peak and regular wave action is coming ashore. It’s high enough to prevent Izzy and I from getting past the big tree obstacle half way down the beach. The water is dirty, too, and has been since the start of the northeaster from runoff and wave action. A small amount of new tree debris — twigs, old flower parts, some maple seeds — is showing up at the high water mark.

I make use of the pull up tree going and coming — only five reps each way — and we head back for the beach access point. Our alternate road, the one leading to the highway, also runs through the neighborhood over to the last place upstream opposite to the direction we normally take. We head that way to add a little more distance and this road ends back at the beach, then back home.  

It’s very quiet back off the beach in the woods.  No wind is apparent in the tree tops and you would not think the beach would be windy, a typical condition for us.

Another broken pine is near the last home where we turn around.  It looks to be the size of the one that toppled to the beach yesterday, but in this case only the top twenty feet broke off. Again the pine looks healthy, past tense since the broken part contains all the green needles.

 Two dead pines stand nearby that are about the same size.  They have lost much of their bark which shattered into small chunks across the ground. I’ve seen bark blown off similar trees, but this looks like it just fell off as the trees were whipped about. These pines have been killed by pine beetles or pine bark beetles, a continuing problem for which the only solution is to destroy the tree. This is done to reduce the beetle population but I don’t think would help with long-dead trees because the beetles have probably left the building. —

Walking the Beach #28 (Apr 07)

Sunday it rained all the blustery day and everyone stayed under cover. Today started off with clear skies that quickly clouded back up. Weather reports predicted steady winds of thirty mpg with gusts to fifty.

The river is remarkably calm, dappled, but few regular waves so water laps at the shore in slow fits and starts. Wind-whipped places appeare suddenly on the surface when bursts of swirling wind tousle small areas of water.

The tide is almost at the high mark and had been further inland yesterday judging from the smoothed area. Beyond that, while wet, the sand still mirrors the river’s dappled look made by past human activity.  Three inches of rain we had did not smooth that area to any degree. Pollen still shows along the same area, though only for about fifty yards, where it appeared before the storm. It could be new pollen or old.

Trees lining the shore are whipped as brief gusts blow through them and most background noise is from the wind. No contrails were visible while the sky was clear and no boats of any type are on the river. One or two birds make quick flights over the water before returning to shore.

The amount of rainfall caused enough water to be discharged from three spots along the bank to wash about six inch deep sand layer away and expose the clay underneath. One of these showed a stream bed about six feet wide.  The exposed area for the other was less than a foot. Two other places where small creeks continuously flow across the beach show enlarged areas of sand removal.

Only one place along the bank shows significant change. Here a huge chunk about fifteen feet square slipped down about fifteen feet to the beach, reaches the waterline and is staining the water as waves roll against the red soil. Two small cedar trees and a half dozen small hardwood trees sprout, undisturbed, from the top.

No debris at all was washed ashore by the storm. The beach looks cleaner than usual.

The fancy pier work has reached the shingling phase and should be complete today. The extension ladder is now gone from the low damaged pier and is nowhere to be seen. —-

 

Walking the Beach #25 (Apr 07)

 We had an inch of rain overnight and it cleared the air this morning. It’s in the fifty’s and damp with no breeze. A tornado watch is in effect for another hour, but the overcast is breaking up as predicted, so any tornadoes are outside our neighborhood.

The tide is on the high side, but not so as to be an obstacle. Wave action is very lazy, slowly sloshing ashore ahead of us, then behind and adjacent as we walk. The water still has a slight dappled appearance, that hammered silver look, but without the sun shining.

We spot a young gray heron just as we reach the beach. It’s most tolerant of our approach and doesn’t fly off until we are within fifty feet and then just a short ways off. Another shows up around the big promontory and is more skittish about our presence.

Several young eagles are cruising the sky. We spook a third one from the top of a tall tree also past the big promontory. Two kingfishers are back in the same area and leapfrog over us going and coming.

Someone is working on the fancy pier when we return. It looks like preparation is being made to put a roof over the newly erected second boat lift. The extension ladder on the low damaged pier walkway hasn’t been moved since it appeared a few days ago. The fancy pier wins the prize again for the most activity.

The pull up tree is damp and easier to grasp while exercising. I manage six pretty good repetitions, the max so far.

The rain helped further blur the many prints in the dray areas of the beach, but little else. The wind that blew all day yesterday failed to blow any interesting debris ashore.

Two seagull type birds, I later heard are common terns, perform a midair squabble for a few minutes over the water when Izzy and I are most of the way back. Seabirds around here don’t generally fight. These have a peculiar split tail that looks like one end of a skate egg case (sorry, but they do and you’ll just have to Google the egg cases or look up the common tern).

No oyster boats a all today despite the calm weather. No contrails, either, but cloud cover blocks any that may exist. Two layers of clouds are shifting about. A lower, fast moving layer is dark without back lighting, while the upper layer appears fluffy and white with blue patches between.

The air is very clear due to the rain. However, at one place a collection of pollen is visible in the water along the water line. —-

Walking the Beach #24 (Apr 07)

 It’s blustery today, a continuation of yesterday and part of a northeaster predicted to bring some badly needed rain later on. The official wind speed is thirteen MPH, but it seems higher. Waves are rolling straight into shore, kind of strange for a river you’d think. They’re pushing the low tide up the beach to a mid-tide position. Larger waves also break up the reflected sunlight. They reduce the glare and give the light a muted quality as if it is being reflected off hammered silver. Part of this may be due to clouds covering part of the sky and yesterday’s haze that is still present.

Noise from wind through the trees and wave action mask most other sounds. A large commercial airlines passes and can barely being heard. Strangely, the sound of a small single engine propeller plane, high overhead, can be heard, too. Only one contrail is ever visible.

Two oyster boats are out, in line with the lighthouse base. They’re spaced a half mile apart, and obviously aren’t deterred by larger waves.

Izzy and I can make it down and back past the various obstacles despite the wave action.

A couple buzzards seem to enjoy the weather, flying about as if the air isn’t moving. One seabird with long and rather skinny wings skims above the water and also handles the wind effortlessly. I think it’s an albatross. The wings are very different from seagulls, eagles, vultures and ducks. The blue heron has a similar long wingspan, but huskier looking.

Beach sand markings capture my eye today. Footprints in dry sand start off looking blurry and become more so with time. These entirely cover many areas giving the surface a churned look. Marks in wet sand are well defined and detailed, with little competition, but last only until the next tide.

Marks in sand are of several categories. Most are from people and dogs. A smaller number come from birds, mostly small ones mixed with those of an occasional blue heron. Small bird tracks disappear in dry sand, but blue heron feet are large enough to persist. They’re easy to identify, having three toes, each about three inches long that point forward, and one to the rear, also three inches long.

Water marks are another category. Rain drops leave a dappled pattern. Tidal movement leaves lines and mounds, including the dividing line between wet and dry. Wet sand slung onto dry has a unique look. It’s seen along the wet-dry divide where wind-whipped globs of water-churned sand blow onto a dry area. A wet dog coated with sand produces a similar look when it shakes itself over a dry area.

A last type mark is left by any long and lightweight piece of material with one end anchored that’s moved back and forth carving a circular pattern. If not anchored, it can more crablike across sand leaving strange regular tracks that make no sense unless the material is seen at one end. —-

Walking the Beach #23 (Apr 07)

We have a little warmer day today, though still pretty cool. The tide is at low level exposing some of the mud flats. The sky is cloud free, but hazy with a couple very small contrails. Two oyster boats are working near the lighthouse base.

It feels like no breeze on the way down although some can be seen moving what leaves are out on trees up on the bank. However, on the way back it feels like a steady twenty MPH wind. There was probably a shift while we were around the promontory and I couldn’t feel it until we rounded the point on the way back. No sound from the boats could be heard and just a little from the waves on the way out; only wind noise on the return, of course.

The four eagles are still hanging around, moving between trees and on down the riverbank as we approach. Mom flys out and lands on a branch from a storm-displaced tree on the tidal flats a hundred yards out. At the same time a small oyster boat with one person heads towards us and stops a little ways from the eagle which tolerates this. The waterman shovels something that sounds like oyster shells out of the boat bottom into the river. This lasts about ten minutes and he heads back out, strange behavior unless he is seeding an oyster bed.

I started filming a movie with the camera from the halfway point up to the promontory point with some running commentary. The result is usable but a little grainy and while the small oyster boat with nearby perching eagle are covered, they can only be seen as unidentifiable specs.

During the filming process two kingfishers appear. They’re too small to show in the movie and their sounds are not picked up by the camera. They were not around on the first leg, so must have been inland or followed us down rather than our previous experience of coming upon them and being leapfrogged.

The cold weather of several days past was bad enough to do some damage to newer growth, but not too much. —-

Walking the Beach #21 (Apr 07)

 The temperature is in the 40’s today and really windy, but folks are out on the beach with their dogs, so we head back for the alternate, access, road. No oyster boats, nor contrails, again. A two-engine Navy plane slowly passes by downriver and that’s it.

Izzy decides he’d had enough after the short beach walk, so I’m alone for this walk. One of the neighbors with a tractor has a blade he uses to smooth the bumps and fill in the potholes which he did yesterday so today walking is a little rougher. Despite the colder temperature there are several sets of footprints in the gravel where others have passed.

It’s windy on the access road, too.

Later in the day we’re interrupted by a neighbor at the door asking us to dial 911 because her husband is kayaking out to rescue someone in the river who dumped himself into the water. We make the call and stay on the line while heading out to the river to see the kayaker with someone in tow. I’d earlier noticed in passing someone in a small boat with an outboard engine making hard turns while towing what looked like a boogie board. It’s the same person. We learn the boat was overpowered and a gust of wind caught and flipped it during one of the turns. The driver was not wearing a kill cord to the engine when dumped, so the boat kept going, but must have stalled out because it was a couple hundred yards away.

The victim stood as soon as the kayaker reached shallower water and was able to walk on in. He was a guy in his 50’s and the kayaker yelled that everything was OK, to cancel the 911 call. Meanwhile another boat had approached and the kayaker directed it to recover the loose boat. I didn’t have any other details although the 911 dispatcher asked if there was a name or boat number available.

The boater was lucky. Water temperature is in the 40’s and the chill factor is twenty-five times greater than in air so even a good swimmer can succumb close to shore or in a dry suit. This man was in work clothes and very embarrased.

Over the next couple hours we received several more calls from various agencies asking for more details. That’s the problem with the messenger not being involved. —-

Walking the BEach #20 (Apr 07)

 It’s snowing this morning, so you can guess the temperature. Just enough to coat the bushes and ground, then melted off in a couple hours. It was gone off the beach by the time we arrived. It’s Saturday again, but the weather is keeping everyone inside. As we approached the fancy pier on the return trip two people with two big dogs were heading up the steps and were long gone by the time we arrived. Izzy never even noticed them. The overcast was breaking up by the time we returned.

It was pretty windy too, but the riverbank seemed to shield us much of the time. Izzy was more game than I expected to be out today. We had to kick him out of the house in the morning for a bladder run, yet when told it was walk time, he was ready for action. He appeared happy to be heading home, too, when we turned around at the halfway point.

The tide was midway, but wind-driven waves moved water a little further, and made most of the noise. No birds, planes or oyster boats today.

I timed our walk back from the halfway point moving as fast as possible while viewing and panning the area as we walked through a finger-made frame to see how much distance could be covered with one load of camera memory for a video. It looks like two loads will cover most of the distance, something to do on forthcoming walks. It was cold weather to hold your hands out in front as you walk.

Someone left a small extension ladder on top of the low damaged pier. Perhaps some repair work is planned and just in time for the upcoming hurricane season!

The only interesting thing was a few bare footprints in the sand near the low pier. Nowadays on these beaches it’s rare for anyone to walk barefoot. There’s just too much broken glass and other debris to be safe. —-

Walking the Beach #19 (Apr 07)

Wow, it’s cold this morning. There was a skim of ice on the dog’s outside water bowl. It has warmed up a little and fortunately only a slight breeze is present, along with just a high thin overcast that lets the sun through.

The tide is on the low side and we have only the usual single obstacle, the long and large fallen tree we have to climb under near the major promontory, just past the low damaged pier. There are eight oyster boats lined up near the lighthouse base, but I can’t hear any of them. The wind must be blowing in their direction. The water hits the beach with slow, lazy waves, but on top of that further out are large patches of agitated water as if big schools of fish are just below the surface and thrashing about. That’s the wind kicking up a little action.

Our walk takes the usual hour and the number of contrails varies from one to five, active ones that is. Some of the cloud cover comes from old contrails that have spread out. A half dozen of them are up there. Some of the active contrails are quite short, like the wake of a small boat while others stretch many miles.

A long-dead cormorant has washed ashore near the low pier. The body is mostly gone, but the head and beak, especially that hooked beak, are distinctive enough to make for an easy identification. We see a few of them out in the water, but a large population of at least twenty perch on big piling clusters that protect a ferry landing a few miles upstream. 

There’s no odor associated with the dead bird and smells are mostly absent on the beach.  I’ve never noticed any odors from the oyster boat diesel engines or beach debris like a dead fish or crabs that wash ashore even during the summer.  The deer carcass that appeared a few months back produced some odor, but only on days when the wind was right — or more correctly, wrong — and then only for a hundred feet from it.  That was the worst case situation and might have been more troubling in warmer weather rather than wintertime.

It’s a very quiet day and cold enough to keep your hands in your pockets as you walk. A lone observation helicopter appears over water and heads back ashore down from the turnaround point. One owl hoots a few times and a couple birds can be heard along the way, but nothing is flying about this morning. However, we do see that red-tailed hawk again, perched on a piling off the end of the low damaged pier about a hundred yards away. Most of a fish can be seen sticking out from under a foot through the binoculars. The color of the plumage is more visible and brighter today showing a very light tan breast and light brown back. All this agrees with any pictures seen on the internet. He makes hawkish sounds as we get a little closer and soon flys off, but not with the fish.

An interesting fossil worth keeping is an intact ivory-colored clam shell (two sides together) that filled with a dark brown sandy mixture some millions of years ago, was then petrified or fossilized, and finally about eighty percent of the two shell halves were chipped away by natural processes making it look like a cutaway drawing. You can see much of the calcified brown sand and the impression it made of the shells’ undersides, more so for one side than the other where several holes have been eroded into the sand. The whole thing is about four inches across.

When we think of beaches it’s the version where mostly there is just sand and sometimes a variety of shells. They are placid and peaceful, until the sunburn sets in or a hurricane arrives. This beach is more the industrialized version with enough going on to make it difficult to just watch for fossilized shark’s teeth or arrow heads. —-