Today is a repeat of yesterday; same mid-tide, light breeze, cool but warming under the sun, a couple clouds, no airplane traffic and a few boats, including the small one with the guy using oyster tongs. Tidal action has smoothed out the ‘fingers’ of coarser sand that covered much of the beach for a few days.
Sound is carrying further today. I can hear the two guys talking in the small oyster boat that looks to be a half mile off. A large, typical, oyster boat with loud motor comes into the river from above the guys in the small boat. It heads downstream and either mid-river or towards the opposite shore, easily heard for a good twenty minutes. About the time it fades from hearing the sound of some emergency vehicle can be heard probably on the closest main road on this side of the river, which is at least a half mile away once you get up a thirty foot bank and through some woods.
Still no action at the damaged low pier. More treated 2×6 lumber may have been deposited. It looks like fifty or sixty boards.
The gopher tunnels look the same with no new traffic. One eagle erupts from a tree as we walk by. A heron leaves another tree far down the bank also due to our approach. Another osprey, probably, cruises by out over the water. No kingfishers have been around for at least a week.
The dead raptor, an osprey, it turns out, was probably the victim of entanglement. Its talons were ensnared by some nylon rope, about four or five feet in a loose ball, some of it unraveling. It looks like the osprey grabbed it with both feet, couldn’t release it or free either foot, so it was hobbled. A few loose strands were around both ankles. It was easier to cut this off than find a way to slip it off. Had the osprey been alive it would have been a difficult process to free without injury to person or bird. Photos of all this and the tangle of rope were provided a local wildlife expert for training.
I’ve been examining the fossil-bearing strata along the way and find a rare exposed piece of fossilized whale bone at the base of the bank right behind the pull-up tree. It’s about a foot long and sticks out an inch. It’s not mine to just dig out, but I can keep an eye on it in case it eventually washes out into the public part of the river. The exposed part could be most of the piece, or tip of the iceberg, so it’ll be interesting to see what develops. Bank erosion only occurs during stormy weather and hopefully it won’t disappear entirely during such bad weather.
A medium-sized dragon fly landed in my lap on the way back and decided to stay there the rest of the way back, climbing on up to my chest by the time we leave the beach. It finally climbed onto an offered thumb and perched there a minute before taking off…
