September 18, 2009

Report Details

Coast watch beach report for September 18, 2009 - Weather: warm, no wind, clear exceptfor a light haze at the beach. Temperature 66 degrees. Tide incoming. Surf moderate tolight. 4 vehicles on the vehicles allowed portion of the beach. 9 people, four walking their dog, two more pairs walking together. One walking his dog. Beach was clean of debris,just some kelp and seaweed here and there and shell castings from crabs. What wasremarkable was the number of small fish of some kind on the beach. I am not an expert onsea life, but if I was guessing I would have to say they were smelt. About 6 to 8 inches inlength, slim and streamlined with a pronounced 'V' tail. Tops were a blue-gray, sides and belly silver with an irisdescent stripe on the side between the blue-gray top and the silver sides. Counted 12 of them in a 25 ft. square of beach sand, most pecked by birds. Notmany birds considering the feast on the sand, they must have been sated with fish. I didnotice as driving to the beach that the estuary of Wahanna and the Necanicum was just white with seabirds of some kind. Couldn't identify the birds from the highway, but it looked like snow on the beach. Like the work got out that today was the day for a huge fish feed, and all the available birds put in an appearance. As an aside - The town of Gearhart had laid down a rock subbase for a one lane road parallel to the beach and about 150 feet seaward from the houses fronting the beach. This is probably 1,000 feet of beach grass and shore pines from the foredune. At the moment a large well drilling operation is going on the southern end of our mile of beach (326). I believe the outfit doing the work is Boart-Longyear, or something similar to that.