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 #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 #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. —-

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. —-