November 28, 2009

Report Details

It has become a Thanksgiving tradition to walk the spit, giving my sons and I a chance to reconnect in the comfort of the natural world. We were lucky to have the sun our companion as we began our trek. We walked north on the bayside from mile 276 to 278, as we began our last report of 2009. I had not yet explored the bayside this year, so it was an interesting venture. We found sponges lodged in the mud, skeletal remains of three birds, and deer footprints. We saw three white cranes, a blue heron, one turkey vulture flying over the bay, and a flock of shore birds that I still do not know the name of. The disheartening finds on the bayside were 6 large green plastic crates, measuring 2ft by 3ft, and one white laundry basket. We also collected a styrofoam buoy, and small plastic drinking bottles. We tied these crates together and dragged them over the dunes to the beach side when we reached the end of mile 277. We stashed our "goods" and walked the beach up to the end of mile 278. Our first find, resting at the edge of the dune, was a seal. Its eyes were missing and nose had been removed somehow, but the rest of the body was intact. We saw skeletal remains of five seagulls and three dead fish, measuring 4 inches long. We saw pelican footprints and three separate flocks of shorebirds.The erosion along the coast between miles 277 and 278 was immense. The trees that stood on top of the dunes in August were gone. I would estimate that a good 10-20 feet of coast has been washed away.The garbage collection was the same -- water bottles from other countries, two shoes, a couple of styrofoam buoys, and a lot of rope. The one major item was a 4-ft wide by 10-ft long, twisted plastic strip at the end of mile 278. We dragged that back to the garbage we had collected from the bayside and dragged it all back to the state park. It took us two hours.Are there any conservation efforts regarding the erosion of the spit?