January 23, 2023

Report Details

Although there were only 6 cars parked at Patterson Creek State Park this early Monday morning, I saw quite a few walkers and off leash dogs on the beach. I crossed the heavily flowing creek to start my mile and headed south close to the ocean.  The latest tide line had a little kelp or grass, sticks, a few large branches, a 3 foot piece of a 2x4, lots of rocks (more than normal), a few mussels and crab bodies and some small pieces of rope. There were not many gulls out this morning but one was eating something near the ocean and it turned out to be a dead bird. This was the only dead bird I saw this time. As I turned around near the Big Stump to head north by the dunes, I noticed that the water pipe had a good stream of water flowing out of it. As I walked north, I could see where the tide had reached the dunes, toppling some of them and depositing logs, debris and trash. There are a few sets of stairs that lead from the cottages and beach houses to the beach. A few of them had debris and logs pushed up close to them.  One of the places I check every walk is the path from 101 to the beach (across from the SW Sea Way Loop on 101). This path comes to the dune height and previously you could climb down the dune to the beach. Today, I was unable to even see where the path was. The dunes were so high (10-12 feet) and I was not able to get access to the top of them. The most exciting part of the walk was stumbling upon 8 snowy plovers feeding near the ocean. This was the first time I've seen them at this location. I did observe 3 unleashed dogs heading toward the plovers and mentioned to the owner that they were there. He was interested to hear about the plovers and said he saw them in the same location a few weeks ago. He also said he would leash his dogs when he got close to them.  There was quite a bit of trash near the dunes - plastic water bottle, coffee lid, toy shovel, rope, plastic shotgun shells and lots of microplastics and styrofoam. I've noticed the plastic shotgun shells washed up on another beach nearby. I haven't seen those before this winter.