Walking the Beach #75 (Nov 07)

 

 

Let’s call this gap since the last entry the Dog Days of Summer — very little going on. Meanwhile the kudzu reached its full growth for the season. The kudzu develops scented flowers, blue ones a little like to sweet peas. The vines finally buried the large onion patch on one section of river bank and now periodic nighttime frosts are beginning to kill the leaves, the dead parts turning gray like weathered wood.

Unusual beach bodies that appeared over the last few months included one skate, one adult eel and one deer, a doe. The skate was about a foot and half across, the eel two and a half feet long. The doe quickly disappeared from sight, either washed away from shore or buried; I’d vote for the washing because the sand is too shallow. Parts of the skull and a few long bones washed up shortly, the result of warmer water on the decay process. Nowadays fresh deer tracks are visible each morning in the sand. The deer population has increased in the area so much so that one farmer had to shoot 120 of them to protect his 50 acre crop. Of course the dry summer reduced forage for wild life and that has driven them to eat things they usually avoid. The farmer, a hunter, had to bury all the carcasses because the warmer weather ruined the meat.

For several weeks blue-black wasps hop-scotched along the beach looking for spiders to capture. A surprising victim was a small land crab about the size of a nickel attacked by four of them. I didn’t stick around to see how the wasps handled the result.

A new pier was installed just upstream from the fancy one and almost as elaborate. The stairs from atop the bank descended through two landings and straddled a jetty before reaching the pier. A short second set of steps descends from the pier to the beach on each side of the jetty. The remnant of an old set of stairs at the bank top was the starting point of this project. Just the other day a couple months after pier completion some signs of erosion appeared on the bank under the stairs and washing down the bank to fan out across the beach towards the pier, as if a small swimming pool had spilled its contents over the bank. No other erosion signs were obvious anywhere along the bank.

Our fall colors appear to be at their best and mixed with the evergreens. A very dry summer did not affect the result and may have improved them, nor did it have much affect on the small streams and springs issuing from or through the riverbank. However, the amount of water did decline and several wet spots dried up. Leaves are falling everywhere. Even the cypress trees lose their very fine needles, turning brown before dropping. A pleasant cypress scent is strong now perhaps because more seed pods have fallen. The pods contain lots of sticky sap where the fragrance is greatest.

Walking the Beach #74 (Jul 07)

It’s several days since Jul 4th.  Many homes along the beach are occupied, probably through this weekend.  More pleasure craft are parked along the beach, all power type except for one tiny sailboat.

A tiny pier, more of a short platform about six feet long with a short ladder on the water side, is close to where we first enter the beach. This is near the onion patch on the bank and a patch of morning glory flowers are on the beach below. One day a small front end loader was parked at the base of the bank. No stairs are present for the home at this point so it looked like preparation for some stair building; however, the tractor was gone the next day.

The tiny pier had been missing the platform part until a few weeks past. One day several pieces of treated lumber appeared and a week later they were gone but I didn’t see where they had gone – to repair the tiny pier. So the tiny pier is at the start of our walk, then comes the fancy pier, then the low pier – previously damaged and now repaired.

Being on this river across from the populated areas offers a view of multiple fireworks displays every Jul 4th.  We could see eight going on at one time this year, the weather conditions being just right, except for mosquitoes. The disadvantage is that the displays are tiny because the closest one was about eight miles off.

Most days, now, a single heron is present somewhere on the beach. One or two eagles, too. Oftentimes no commercial boats are working or just one crabber will cruise along during our walk. A flock of about twenty-five starlings sometimes swoop about between the tiny pier and fancy one. Aircraft activity is more limited, too.  Even though we are walking earlier, that shouldn’t make a difference.

The bald cyprus have grown new seed pods. These are green balls about the size of a ping pong ball. When ripe they turn brown, cracks form and open to release seeds. The pods also exude an aromatic sap. Crushing the pods or a handful of leaves releases an aeromatic smell. Storms with winds strong enough to rip leaves from these trees leave perfumed air for several weeks afterwards, a small positive result compared to damaged from such storms.

We’ve been walking the access road more often this week because of increased human activity on the beach. Trees and brush are slowly intruding on the road as summer progresses. Walking earlier allows us to see more wildlife. Most days we see several deer. One time it included a six-point buck in the middle of the road. This morning was the first time I’d seen a coyote crossing a hay field and the road in front of us. They are not numerous, yet, but the newspapers reported they are about. Bears are also coming back, so that could be an interesting encounter some morning….

Walking the Beach #73 (Jul 07)

The last few days went from hot, humid, rainy and hazy to cool, clear, dry and partly cloudy. An inch of rain fell one day, but didn’t clear the haze and humidity. That took a cool front. However, runoff from the raindid leave dirty fingers of soil on top of the sand a foot or two from the river bank.

The onion field is down to about twelve visible flowering heads out of the hundred we started with. The others are still there, but buried under the kudzu.

Near the onions on the sand the morning glorys are still out and more plentiful than two months back when they first appeared. They come in different colors, but these are all the same with light purple (mauve?) and white stripes.

It’s so cool this morning that when the sun peeks through for a minute it really feels good. The water, at low tide, is corrugated with waves parallel to the shore superimposed in dappled patches where gusts of air touch down. It’s quiet, too, despite the periodic lapping of each wave against the shore. Over this the crickets or cicada can be heard. A male cicada is lying on his back in the road on our return . Females have an inch-long lance or ova depositor to pierce bark and lay eggs. It can pierce skin, too, which I nearly found out from still bug that came to life after I picked it up.

This cool air seems to capture flower smells. At one place a pleasant smell can be traced to a few honey suckle blossoms. A little further on another leads to the small mimosa tree surviving at the base of the bank and now covered with pink flowers.

More work is being done on jettys. Four of the five we pass extend to the bank or stop a foot or two shy. Only one starts several car lengths out. The work is just adding height by piling more odd chunks of concrete from uprooted footings for posts, to broken pavement and landscaping blocks. It’s as if everyone is preparing for stormy weather. More likely this is renovation time for the aging places along the bluff, and the jettys are receiving part of the fallout.

Work on the low pier may be completed, unless a shelter is planned out at the end. Yesterday afternoon another boat pulled the pile driver upriver past our place, so it looks like no more piles will be installed. The pile driver isn’t self-propelled.  Its driving device goes where an outboard would normally be placed.

Only one old contrail shows where any blue sky can be seen. The sound of a plane can be heard at one point, but not seen. Another sound like the motor from a fishing sized boat can be heard over the water, but no boats are visible, so the source never appears.

Past the big promontory the osprey carcass on he sand is even more dissipated. The talons have gone from gleaming black to dusty gray and the skin of the feet is misshapen. You can see why old talons are not a desirable collectible, like antlers or shells.

Several herons are about and one small shore bird, but no evidence of deer, otters or other bird life is about. Tidal action has smoothed away evidence of the otter’s sand box.

An owl flew out of the tree tops close to the turnaround point the last time we were down this way. That’s the second time it appeared that I’d seen. It could have flown by silently other times and I’d not have know, of course. I’d like to photograph it and keep a watch on the trees in this area, but nothing appears this trip.

This is the 4^th of July week and more folks are about during the week than usual. Monday, yesterday, we turned back after barely starting out to avoid bothering people sitting on the bluff. The alternate route up the access road is less entertaining. Grass alongside the road has half grown back. Hay has about half grown back, too, in the two fields harvested a month back, but may not do well because rain is pretty scarce….

Walking the Beach #72 (Jun 07)

It’s going to be hotter today than yesterday, so we are out even earlier which is about right, plus there’s a bit more breeze this morning. The tide is low. It’s clear and still hazy, no contrails, one fishing vessel and sun is pretty low in the sky but you can still feel the heat.

Something finally mauled over the dead water moccasin. It looks like only some rolled up skin is left, not that it’s worth investigating.

One learns how good an observer you are doing this bloging when you can revisit places and see things previously described. The pilings by the low damaged pier I thought had been hauled off fact appear to have been installed to one side of the end making a T-shaped platform. Then there are the stringers that run down the pilings, which I said were inside the posts, are actually spaced between the posts to provide a nailing surface for the walkway about every eighteen inches.  They are not just attached to the insides of the posts. Also, the outsides of the posts are notched so the outside stringers sit on a shoulder and aren’t just attached to a flat surface.

The walkway planks are all installed out to the end, over a hundred or hundred fifty feet of damaged walkway. While we are in the official hurricane season and are due for more than average number of the severe types, thus far the weather has been just the contrary to wet and windy. I don’t know which would be better, drought or hurricanes, if you had to choose.

The gopher that left tracks in the sand seems to have left the area, one way or another.  Only old tracks are still around, those that haven’t been erased.

Another observation snafu: the osprey carcass still has both feet. They had drawn up under the body for some reason. It had been flipped over this time around and the feet are visible.

A live osprey does a little fishing nearby on our return lap. The tree-bound heron near the turnaround point makes it’s usual launch as we approach that area.

The otter’s sand box is still at the turnaround point. It had been moved about ten feet in amongst some downed tree branches that block further progress, the reason for this being the turnaround spot.

Clay chunks that fall from the bank slowly break apart as they dry. I wondered if beginning cracks or uncracked chunks would remain intact if placed in a pool of water. They don’t. The cracked ones continue to disintegrate. More solid pieces slowly soften. So if a piece containing lots of fossils is to be preserved to show at a school or museum, there is a time limit involved and wrapping it in plastic or placing it in a water-filled bucket won’t help much….

Walking the Beach #71 (Jun 07)

 Hot and humid weather is here. At 7 AM with a slight breeze, wearing a t-shirt, you can be pretty sweaty after a short beach walk. Cloud cover is thin and a humid haze helps block direct sunlight, which helps, but Izzy still starts panting shortly after we start.

A few fresh deer tracks from a lone deer are along the waterline. More show up at several places over the entire distance we cover. Could be the same critter.

The small sink hole in sand by the first jetty has been filled in. I just noticed the change, but don’t recall seeing it for a couple weeks.

A decapitated water moccasin is close to the waterline at the fancy pier. It has been there several days and looks like someone chopped or shot off the head. Nothing has touched it, yet, in contrast with fast attacks by vultures on any stranded fish. In that vein the osprey carcass past the promontory had been gutted and stripped to the breastbone only a couple days after washing up. The wings and head are untouched. The legs with impressive talons are also gone, which may be by human hand.

Otter tracks appear in several places and may be along much of the beach toward the less trafficked area. I have trouble distinguishing otter from dog. They are much alike to me, but I think the otter prints lack toenail marks.

The place at the turnaround point that had been used as a sandbox by the otter went untouched for a couple weeks. I thought it had left the area until today when the usual spot showed some disturbance.

The tide is low so beach obstacles were easy to skirt. Only a couple of crabbers are out today, but no boats have been around on several days.

Contrails are also few these hot, humid days. This morning a couple jet liners crossed over the river on their way from the local airport.

Bird life is greatly reduced the last few days, too.  Today typically one young eagle appears as we start our walk.  Close to the mid point a lone heron launches from a tree top.  No kingfishers and only a few starlings can be seen.  Even fewer fish can be seen jumping in the warmer river water which is about 80 degrees.

The low damaged pier is now under construction. New two-by-sixes now connect 25 pilings spaced about eight feet apart. These are what the planks are attached to, so they connect pilings on each side plus running along the inside and outside of each pile. That’s a lot of expensive lumber.

The used pilings that were in the water, then pulled up on the beach are now gone. It doesn’t look like they were used on this pier, so may have been carted off for use elsewhere.

Pilings or piles is a strange name for these wooden posts, but if you look up the word in the dictionary, this same term applies to batteries, nuclear reactors and part of a rug. No wonder English is such a tough language.

I’ve started doing slow pull-ups on the pull-up tree, taking thirty seconds for each one. I can now do seven of the usual version, but barely two of the slow ones. Doing fewer repetitions causes less joint irritation, but the difficulty and benefit seems to be equal.

We had a breeze going down the beach, but not coming back, just the opposite of what you want. Off the beach it’s shady and more of a breeze seems to be available and it’s appreciated…

Walking the Beach #70 (Jun 07)

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…

Walking the Beach #69 (Jun 07)

 

 

It’s nice and cool today with low humidity. The haze is gone and clouds, too. Rain did come yesterday, but very little and the ground shows no effect.

A comfortable breeze follows us down and back up the beach. It’s probably the cause of increased wave action that has filled yesterday’s void with slowly rolling waves breaking with irregularity.

Two crabbers work their way across the bay, following different tracks, one constantly moving and the other traveling in slow hops. A smaller boat is manned by two people, guys I presume, one of whom is using oyster tongs. The boat has been in place each morning a little ways upstream and a few hundred yards offshore. I’d thought it was anchored and unmanned until binoculars showed the men. The boat is half the length and width of the usual oyster boat and lacks a superstructure.

More lumber, the big stuff – 2 x 6’s ten or twelve feet long — is piled on the bank near the low damaged pier. No work has been done. The pile-driver looks unused. When work does start we may have to stay away for the few days until it’s done.

The sky is clear of any past or present air traffic. One jet liner passes overhead halfway through the walk, heading out of the area, just barely visible and without a contrail.

Izzy draws my attention to a dead falcon on the beach just past the promontory. It looks full grown, bedraggled from being in the water and lying face down with wings spread and head turned to the side. It’s eye is open and clear like it might arise at any moment, but the body condition and being half buried in sand says otherwise. Death is common on the river, for crabs, for fish, turtles, deer, dogs, and tons of shellfish. The falcon is just more striking than crushed shells. It can also be more smelly.

The mole or gopher that was working on the beach yesterday had been at it again. The trails are longer like it is bumping against the bank as it works along the beach. Still no tracks in the sand where the mounds start or stop.

The breeze brings the scent of something nice on the way back. It turns out to come from a small mimosa tree that has slipped down the bank with some attached soil to continue its life until carried away by some storm. The flowers on this version are pink. I’ve never noticed a scent from them before. They are very nice..

Walking the Beach #68 (Jun 07)

Yesterday’s haze is still with us and now it’s overcast with a promise of rain. The tide remains low and no waves at all. It’s strangely quiet, too, despite plentiful background sounds – birds, crickets, what may be road noise from across the river and a jet liner leaving the area. It must be the absence of all wind; it is very still. And cool, but still humid.

A very persistent May fly had to be killed or it was going to have a piece of me. Later a couple more were just as bad. They can bite through a tee shirt and you definitely know when they are doing it. This morning I wore a baseball cap with no fly trap on the back, too.

A half dozen used pilings are grouped at the water line by the low damaged pier. The work boat, on second look, does look like it has a pile driving weight or ram. The boat doesn’t look like it has been moved. The pilings may have been pulled up from elsewhere and brought in. They have been used, but are not worn or very old. Other wood is on the beach and two folded pieces of boat lift struts, each with a motor attached, are lying on the undamaged part of the pier.

Three working boats are moving about a half mile or more from the shore. One heron flies off downstream, then back up as we progress. A raptor perching on a river marker and flying about is making the characteristic raptor squawk that sounds like a canary on steroids. An eagle lifts off from the tree tops near our turnaround point, a daily occurrence, now.

As we approach the turnaround point a big animal crashes away out of brush half way up a sloped section of bank. It’s most likely a deer, probably the one that has left tracks on the beach in this area.

Near the promontory a couple short mole-like tunnel mounds and some holes are evident in the sand close to the bank. The marks are about five feet long. No tracks are visible around them and nothing shows on the raw earth of the bank face, so where the animal came from and went doesn’t show.

Most of the beach that’s being shaped by normal tides is now developing a regular pattern of spaced bands of very coarse sand that’s light colored alternating with fine sand that’s darker. Each band is about a foot wide and runs from two to five feet long.

A small critter I call the beach cockroach is now appearing around pilings and rubble. They are actually marine isopods and our largest are about an inch and a half long. They appear in colonies up to a couple hundred that duck for cover whenever people appear, so they are usually seen from a distance as rapidly moving somethings with camouflage colors….

 

Walking the Beach #67 (Jun 07)

 

It’s going to be the hottest day this year and even very early it’s warm and hazy from the humidity. The sky is clear except for a small wispy cloud and sun is up but the haze blocks much of the sun’s heat, which is helpful since we’ve no breeze. Tide is low and water is slowly lapping at the shore, more like a river should be than the usual wave action.

The onion patch is less visible. Kudzu tendrils around toppled flowering heads wrapping themselves around ground vines stitching the mounds in place. The flowering heads seem to be doing fine under the greenery despite the limited sunlight. A single sunflower has rooted from a seed dropped by a bird on the bare soil close to the base of a vertical piece of bank. A ten-inch blossom grew from the poor soil with little water and only the baking sunlight. Smart bird!

The low damaged pier now has a small pile-driving boat parked next to the end. It looks like repairs may be planned. I call it a pile-driver, but the vertical device on the back end may be just to upend piles . They can be set in place by washing a hole under the bottom so they sink into the riverbed from their own weight. Besides the boat looks too small to handle the pile-driving weight. I didn’t think any pilings were missing or damaged, just the connections and planks, so an addition may be in order.

Two peregrine falcons are fishing near the shore, hovering and diving periodically to catch fish in the shallows. Our passage doesn’t bother them. Two eagles and two herons are near the turnaround point, sort of permanent residents for the summer it appears.

Deer tracks appear in two places on the beach, widely separated, and I would think two of them are involved.  Bare footprints have also shown up.  This time it looks like some are adult and some are child sized.

No more dead fish have appeared and only a couple small crabs have washed up. The dragonflies are more numerous and varied, but not as plentiful as last year; not yet anyway. A few mosquitoes have appeared, so the dragonflies are timely.

Two working boats are out.  One has a load of black crab traps piled several feet high and slowly travels from downstream close in to shore towards the river center a couple miles upstream.  He must be placing traps, but it’s not obvious…

Walking the Beach #66 (Jun 07)

It’s Sunday and a short beach walk day. The weather is heating up. It’s cool enough this morning, but haze from high humidity already shows, obscuring the far bank and other more distant objects. No clouds are about nor planes or contrails, old or new, for the moment. A couple boats have shown up, but may be fishermen in pleasure craft.

The beach shows little traffic after the recent few days of smoothing tides. Today there’s no breeze for the moment no any wave action, so it’s very quiet. Even bird life is absent along the riverbank.

One fossilized oyster shell had a very high count of growth rings. It looks to be about 42 to me. Here it is if you want to count.

We use the main access road to meet our distance goal and pick raspberries on the way back. The haul this time is 233. That’s probably the peak number available for such a small area, about fifty feet along the road.

Chiggers are now a problem. Two of them already left their mark from either the last picking day or other work around unmown areas of our yard. Repellent on my shoes, socks and cuffs along with taping closed the cuffs is good protection, but takes time and a fair amount of tape. I’ll know in a day or so if the protection worked this time.

The cool air of the morning intensifies natural scents.  Mostly its the smell of composting soil and moist earth.  All the scented flowers have gone.  Magnolia blossoms are out, but have no scent.  For the summer all we’ll have now is the result of farming from mown crops and tilled soil….