July 13, 2009

Temperature: 60 F. Cloud Cover: Cloudy. Wind Velocity: Calm/Light. Wind Direction: W.

Number of people: 3. Number of dogs: 1. Walking or running: 3.

Disturbances: Shorebirds moving in response to humans/dogs

No mammals, plovers (30 or so), occassionaly other birds, no living invertebrates, no seaweed (unusual)

Few crab carapaces, few varnish clam shells, little by way of anything

Basically empty drift line (by which I mean where the water met the sand).

Beach Walk Mile 95 Monday, July 13th, 2009 Three of us and my dog left our house and walked down the sandy path across what used to be the county park (now owned by Bandon Biota) at the end of Lower Fourmile Lane. The entire walk took us from 11 AM to 1 PM. We forded the New River at the end of the sandy path to what Steve Nielsen says is the beginning of mile 95. The water was knee deep at most and pretty warm. We crossed over the dunes and found the waves were quite small, only two feet from trough to crest at best. The weather was cloudy when we started but became sunny as we walked. The wind was mild. I scanned the water and we walked up to where the New River flows into the ocean but we were sorely disappointed to find no mammals anywhere. We did, however, see dozens of plovers scurrying in front of the water running up the beach. These are the first I have seen this year. We also saw one sandpiper. Other than these we saw very few birds. We saw a total of three jellies, the largest the size of a dinner plate and over twelve inches across. We found two sea stars, both sort of pale orange and purple with five feet. Each was about eight inches across. I saw no seaweed at all. We were walking on the wet sand pretty much the entire way. (We returned south along the New River.) There were only a few crab carapaces and the sand was very clean. There was no course sand or gravel. There was very little flotsam or jetsam. I saw a few varnish clam shells. We did find two floats on the banks of the New River but none on the beach. We also saw the usual signs around the plover nesting areas and one wire cage, presumably around a nest. We didn’t see anyone else but did find the tracks of an ATV that I think belongs to the predator control guy. They were right down next to the water and it appeared he had gone both ways. We also saw these tracks, going just one way, on the west bank of the New River. On the west bank of the New River we found two sets of human footprints, one of them wearing only one shoe. There were also deer prints, five fingered raccoon tracks and small tracks with four sharp claws that I suspect were left by a fox.