July 5, 2024

Temperature: -1 F. Cloud Cover: Sunny. Wind Velocity: Calm/Light.

Number of people: 60. Number of dogs: 8. Walking or running: 45. Sitting: 15. Surfing: 26. Other Activities: Sitting, Eating. Walking w/mostly out of control dog that chased any bird that dared to light on the beach or dived to catch a fish in the ocean w/in sight of the dog.. Lots of surfers, people who'd come w/the surfers, all but 2 of the dogs seem to be w/surfers or people accompanying the surfers. About 1/4 of the humans present were children, since the population and making up of the human population changed for the hour, maybe 70 minutes I was on the beach the fraction might've reached 1/3 during that time. Number of dogs also fluctuated, max might've been 10 dogs.

Disturbances: Shorebirds moving in response to humans/dogs

Saw a fairly large bird, mostly white, w/an unusual pattern of black feathers on a mostly white feather background on the underside of its wings. Not every quite overhead and w/out a good telephoto lens (which my phone lacks) there was no point in taking a photo, assuming I could've gotten a good one in the short time the bird was at all close to me. Checked Sibley's birds when I got home, closest I could get to an ID was possibly a semi-adult in the shearwater/petrel category but . . . I wish there'd been an experienced birder w/bincos on the beach w/me. Seemed to have a different beak then a seagull, one flew not far from this bird (not on the same line of flight). Also the unidentified bird dove into the water from fairly high up--higher then I've seen brown pelicans do their dives. It did not look like a pelican, I've seen them often enough in the past 15 years or so. The out of control dog, a Vizla I think, looked around & saw this bird as it hit the water & started to bound through the waves to try to get at it, spooked the bird so it flew off. The dog was pretty far away but w/in sight of the owners--who did nothing to control their dog.

Animal casings (e.g., crab, shrimp molt), Wood pieces. I saw little in the way of a high tide line, or "wrack line"(s).

Newly exposed roots/trees falling, Visible retreat of solid bluff. I saw what is probably damage from winter/spring storm surges and/or high tides. This is a beach bluff beach,i.e never see a real sand dune, but I could see evidence that some sand mounds that potentialla & perhaps af few other plants had colonized had had the sand,etc. composing the mound washed away, probably some of the plants as well, and leaving a mass of roots exposed. A few potentilla were growing out of the root mass. There's generally signs of ongoing erosion all along this beach. Earlier this year, I saw multiple small slides.