Walking the Beach #65 (Jun07)

Still overcast and cool, but the high tides have begun to retreat a little so we can get almost all the way to the turn around point before coming back. We’ve had windy weather for several days. Wind driven tides have left the beach very flat; at an incline, but flat rather than corrugated and convoluted. Water has eaten away one large clump of fallen soil we had to climb over at high tide. Now there’s still a narrow path Izzy can transverse, but I can’t use it. Instead I wade through a small amount of brush that was and pretty much still is rooted in the dirt, but lying on it’s side.

A single May fly decides I’m his meal or he’s dead and devotes him or herself to that end just as we start down the beach and keeps at it for a good hundred yards.  I don’t get him and he misses his meal and he is elsewhere on the return leg. 

Dead fish remnants have diminished, but can still be smelled at a few places and tell us where to look if we’re interested in the source; a head most of the time. A couple places in the sand show vulture scrabble marks where they’ve been feeding.

The turtles seen some days past did not remain or shift location.

A heron launches from a high tree top as we near the turnaround spot and is quickly followed by a hawk, a strange couple. Then I see a second heron on the beach below the launch spot. This looks like the heron pair that claimed this area. One eagle is in the dead cyprus tree by the low damaged tree and flies away as we get close.

The aggressive water and wind activity brought a few more remnants ashore. A solid white construction hard hat in good condition, one of those 52 or 54 ounce insulated big drink containers with a spill-proof top, and a new two-colored oyster-bed buoy are most notable. The hat has a number, 32, on the back,and a name, Tyler on the front. I haul all three of these back to a collection point where we enter the beach. Someone scoops up the pile periodically and hauls it off to the dump.

The part of the bank with the small onion field is slowly submerging in an expanding kudzu blanket. Of the hundred stalks only about twenty are still visible. The others have toppled when the enveloping vine added too much weight, but are still visible and viable when the vines are shifted.

Two working boats are patrolling about off shore. What they are doing can’t be seen with the naked eye.

Yesterday the tide was higher and forced us to turn back sooner, so we also walked the access road where we picked more raspberries. This was the second day to pick and about 125 were available. A few days earlier at the first harvest only about 50 were ripe, so the crop is ‘burgening’….

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 #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. —-

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 #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 #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 #26 (Apr 07)

A perfectly clear day with eight oyster boats in their usual location. The air is calm and water is barely washing ashore at half tide. Enough breeze exists, however, to dapple the water, the dapples changing with shifts in wind direction.

Three guys are now working on the fancy pier roof job. They could be done by tomorrow or no more than a third day from the looks of the progress being made.

Not a contrail in sight today during the entire walk. Sounds from fighter jets and one prop job occur, but nothing visible to see. On the way back a lone helicopter appears up river near the reserve fleet for a few minutes then disappears.

The lone Great Blue Heron around the promontory is spooked again and squawks as he flys off. I sometimes call them gray herons. It looks like both terms are used, although the formal and proper name is Great Blue Heron.

A mother eagle and one kid are in the same area. Mom was on the shore when we came around the promontory. She flew up to the tree where the kid was and both took off from there to somewhere inland.

Two of the common terns fly by.  Their distinctive split tails make identificatione easy.  Perched out in the water on a piece of driftwood is a cormorant with wings spread for drying. 

A few pockets of pollen were in the water along the shore before the promontory, but after the promontory there was a foot-wide ribbon of a couple hundred yards, so the pollen problem is still pretty bad. Ground up leaves and other vegetation that looks like tea leaves is found along the shore, too. The beach along the pollen stretch is marked with a series of lines from the high tide mark to the water line made from the river tea leaves as the retreating tide surges from gusts of wind. The result looks like growth rings. The same marks are present without the tea leaves in other areas, but not as apparent.

Two types of fossilized coral appear here, too. One looks like natural sponge and is about the same color. The other looks like draped fabric that’s petrified. When parts wear away pockets are exposed that are big enough to stick a finger inside. The color is the same as the sponge type. It may be they are the same and the sponge is left after enough of the draped part erodes away. The sponge type is more prevalent, but both seem to be limited to a small area in this less populated area.

We are almost ready to leave the beach and discover a few bare foot prints in the dry sand well back from the high tide mark. These look to be big enough for an adult; another adventurous person. —-

 

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. —-