Butterflies at the Beach

And yet another steamy morning at the beach.  It was already well into its way into the 80s as we got to the beach.  However, a nice southwest wind, helped quite a bit without making the Bay rough.

Just one of those weird things.  In a couple of places we foundlarge numbers of Bay Anchovy (Anchoa mitchilli), washed up and being sun dried at the high tide mark.  Pushed up and stranded by predators?  Avoiding low oxygen?  I can't see an obvious reason.

Bay anchovy are one of the most abundant fish in the Bay, and form huge schools that often look like rain on the water, and are often called rain minnows.

A father and son out enjoying an inflatable kayak.

 Butterflies!  There were lots of Eastern Tiger Swallowtails on the beach today, and I do mean on the beach, as they seemed to be "puddling"; finding damp spots on the sand to sip water from.  All were yellow phase except...

 ...this one.  We must have seen over 20 swallowtails, today, and this was the only dark one.  It's marked very much like the one I photographed at home in the woods yesterday, which makes me feel a lot better about my tentative ID of it as a dark Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.

After I disturbed this one, she went over to the Coltsfoot to rest, and gave me another great shot.

It's hot! Can we go home now?

Another Hot Day at the Beach

It was already 80 F, windless and sultry when we got down to the beach this morning before 9 AM.  Not a cloud in the sky.

FWIW, the Sea Nettle probability is still pegged at 100%.  This enormous mass of them collects behind the jetty at Flag Harbor.  The rest of the beach is bad but not quite this bad.  Enough to discourage barefoot wading, though.

Fortunately for Skye, her thick fur keeps the nettles off her skin.  This is about as deep as she'll go (voluntarily), and she did a lot of wading to beat the heat today.  As it was, she was getting pretty miserable, and we turned back early, fearing that she was overheating.  But she's fine, after a shower and a nap.

The Weed du Jour.  It seems to be about the only wildflower flowering this time of year.  I'm still trying to figure out what it is.

It has pretty yellow flowers, that continue to emerge from the top of the long stem.  It'll probably turn out to be some horrible invasive weed; it seems like most of the stuff that does well in the cliffs is.

Fellow shark's tooth hunters.  Actually, a boy with them turned out to be a fisherman of sorts, when we came back he had a Skilletfish in his bucket which I identified for him.

Only a few small sharks teeth today, and one drums tooth; nothing picture worthy.

Another fisherman (or is it a fisherwoman?) perched on the root ball of a tree deposited in shallow water by Tropical Storm Lee last year.  Almost time for more storms to come and shuffle the trash around and let a few new fossils out of the cliffs. We saw lots of Ospreys, and maybe one eagle, at a distance.

Someone kayak fishing in the channel at Flag Harbor.  I didn't see him catch any fish, but I did see him try, unsuccessfully, to bring in one of the boulders that make up the jetty.  10 lb test won't cut it.

Last July Beach Report, 2012

Only one beach report this weekend; with Alex and Kelly staying yesterday morning on their way back from the Left Coast, we didn't get ready until it was way too hot and muggy.

It was a pretty nice morning; a bit of a front last night left us a lot cooler (in the high 70s) and less humid, with a decent NE breeze.  The breeze set up a nice "wave" over the cliffs, and the Ospreys and Eagles were out taking advantage of it.




A young Eagle, in a sort of mottled plumage.  It was all up and down the cliffs all morning  I wasted a lot of pixels trying to get a decent picture of this bird.  This one isn't great, and I stepped all over the brightness and contrast to bring out the pattern.  He might be this years fledgeling.

A family preparing for a jaunt out in their little inflatable boat, equipped with an electric trolling motor.

 And out on the bay.

A woman hunting fossils with a and held strainer.  It looked like it should be a good day, with lots of shell hash exposed, but Georgia and I found very few.

I did find this fossil fish vertebra though, which is pretty rare, so it wasn't a total wash.

Skye was feeling pretty energetic, after a day off from competing with a smaller and more energetic bitch...

 She even managed a run now and then.

An Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly in flight.












The probability of Sea Nettles is still 100%.












A Great Blue Heron trying to find a bid to eat on a beach full of people.  Feeling squeezed between us and the oncoming walkers, it flew away a few seconds after this.









By the time we were done with the walk, the beach was starting to get busy.

Hendrix Goes Wild

Yesterday, Georgia had a dentist appointment in the morning, so rather than drive two cars to work, Georgia stayed home after the appointment, and tele-worked.  When I came home at 5:30, I expected to be attacked by both dogs, Skye (our aging Siberian Husky) and Hendrix, (our son's Mutt, who is staying with us while they represent the East Coast of the clan at the reunion in Pismo Beach).  Georgia was diligently working on data analysis on the kitchen table.

Skye ambled out and said hi, but Hendrix was nowhere to be found.  We scoured the house, we went outside and checked the fenced yard, and walked the immediate neighborhood calling.  No dog...

We still haven't quite figured out how she got out of the fenced yard, but we have a couple of theories, that we likely will not test. 

We went into full panic mode, and started combing the neighborhood in our cars, asking if anyone had seen a small black and brown dog.  Georgia got one "hit" about 3/4 of a mile up the road, and we both searched the area thoroughly, to no avail.  We called off the search at dark.

Georgia reluctantly called Alex, to get the details of what were on her tags, so we could tell the Animal Shelter if they found her.  He and Kelly were both concerned but utterly unable to do anything from the distance. 

We got up at first light, and started the hunt again.  Georgia got a second "hit" somewhere near the previous one, and as I was leaving to meet the carpool, a woman pulled up and reported she had just seen the dog (we were pretty sure by then) on the same road but closer to home, so back she went, while I went to meet the carpool.

About a half hour later Georgia called to report that she had tracked Hendrix down, only a block from home, sitting in the weeds, wet from the nights dew, and with some new burrs stuck in her coat.  She seems none the worse for her night out on the big town of Long Beach (MD), although a little less bouncy than normal.  But that's probably for the best, as she'll be under house arrest for the remainder of her stay.

There's Something Happening Here, at the Beach

 And what it is ain't exactly clear...

We got another early start to beat the heat, and even maybe the rain.  It was mostly overcast, with no wind, and temperature in the mid to high 70s and humid.  

 The Navy is doing something offshore, and it's very mysterious.  There were three vessels hanging out near the channel of the Bay, two small and one very large. 

One of the two smaller was clearly a crane mounted on a large barge.

 The big ship was odd; a catamaran design with a huge space under the hull.  It looks like another vessel maybe tucked up under there.


They were out there for most of our two hour walk.  Somewhere along the way, the two smaller one disappeared (moved away south or across), and eventually the big catamaran steamed up north.

Much like the Honey Badger, Skye don't care.  We attacked her this week with the comb, (it takes one of us to hold her down, while the other combs), and the result was a huge pile of down, and a dog that looks much slimmer and less scruffy.

Neither do the butterflies.  Eastern Black Swallowtail or Eastern Tiger Swallowtail black form? or maybe even a Spicebush Swallowtail?

Well, I'll leave that to the taxonomists among us.

For about 10 minutes the sun actually came out, and it was rather warm.

Probability of Sea Nettles, still 100%.

Lots of dragonflies about, but not streaming down the beach the way they had the last two weeks.

Have I Told You It's Hot at the Beach?

Well it is.  84 F (and extremely sticky) here at 8 AM.  No breeze at all.

The couple in the water had biked 60 miles down from the north last night, and camped on the beach over night.  More power to them.  When we came back up the beach, they had cleaned up their camp completely and were on their way back.

Time to get a little sun before it gets completely miserable. 

We've met Theresa and Roy plenty of times before.  They're serious shark's teeth hunters, using scoops and wading out where the big ones lay.  They usually have a pretty nice collection when we see them and today was no exception.  Theresa said she found a big Megalodon a couple of weeks ago.

A pretty good handful of big Snaggletooth and medium Mako teeth, not to mention a whole baggie full of small teeth.

 Have I told you it's hot here?

Probability of Sea Nettles still 100%.  They were so abundant today that you had to be pretty careful walking in the water.  I got one little sting.

Sweating at the Beach, 7/7/12

Another hot, muggy day, well into the lower 80 F when we left for the beach at 7:40 AM, and up to 89 F by the end of our walk.  It was also pretty close to breeze-less so there wasn't even much relief there.

But the Ospreys and their young have to eat even on the hot days, and since they have to mostly supply the eagles too, they don't get a break from the heat. Notice the fish in it's grip.  We also had a bunch of dragonflies again, but not as many as on July 4.

We had the beach pretty much to ourselves. Only a few people were out to enjoy what was likely the best weather of the day.  I might have to visit later today just to see if it gets more use later.

Bait fish, probably Menhaden, schooling in the shallow waters.  No sign that anything was chasing them,

The shallows were busy today, lots of small crabs and small fish scurried away when we walked through.

Blackberries, some ripe, growing amongst the other vines on the cliffs.

OK, that's enough, can we go home to the air conditioning now?