April 30, 2017

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April 30th was a beautiful day to be on the coast.  The temperature was a comfortable 55 degrees, light breeze from the north, partly cloudy.  Warm enough to wear a t-shirt and jeans.  My husband and our dog ventured out to check out the changes on the beach. Considering how nice it was outside, there were not very many people out enjoying the day, only about 20 people and 4 dogs.  Most people were walking, or strolling up and down the coast. A couple of kids were enjoying their time playing in the surf.  We expected to pick up at least 4 bags of litter if not more considering Portland and surrounding areas just had their spring break periods over the last couple weeks.  Four bags is our average, however we were pleasantly surprised that there was only 2 bags of trash today, and a dog crate.  We hoped that the dog crate didn't originally have a dog in it, as there was no dog to be found today and the crate was in pretty bad condition.  There were quite a few gulls on the beach today, many more than our last visit.  There were also several small conglomerations of what I think are spotted sandpipers on the beach with their fledglings.  The were so quick I was unable to snap a picture of the groupings.  There were thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of by-the-wind sailor jellyfish washed up on the beach.  There were two major lines of the jellyfish.  One that lined up with the high tide mark, and one with the low tide mark that we observed when we were there.  There was a new ramp installed towards the south end of the mile next to one of the newer housing developments.  I'm not sure if this was permitted or not, but I attached a photo.  The stream towards the north end of the mile was dramatically lower than in previous walks.  The high stream flow of winter months had taken its tole and eroded quite the cut bank on the north side of the stream.  Great day to enjoy the coast!