Saturday, August 31, 2013

2013: A Beach Odyssey

Georgia begged off the beach walk this morning, and I got a late start, arriving a little after noon.  The weather, as you can see, was nearly perfect.  The temperature was in the low 80s, and the breeze was moderate from the south (hence, no waves).  This is going to be a long post. with lots of photos.  I was out almost 4 hours.
The north beach (the one we walk) was nearly empty when I started (see above), but people were already using beach south of the harbor.
Tooth hunting, well, sucked.  I only found 6, including this nice, but kind of small Snaggletooth lower. 
Partly the reason is because, like yesterday, the tide was way up (south wind and all), at least a foot above the astronomical tide, and there was not much beach.



 Partially, it was just distractions...












Flowers, like this Jewelweed...

 Pretty fruit, like these Staghorn Sumac...
 Tattoos...
People playing hackey-sac with their heads and a soccer ball.
I walked farther than I have recently, well past Matoaka Cottages, up to though the narrow area.  With the high tide, I had to wade a good part of the trip, and got a Sea Nettle sting or two for my trouble

The usual suspects were providing air cover.












But mostly, I got distracted by the butterflies I found up in the weeds above the beach once it opened up beyond the cliffs.  I'm going to do a whole separate post on the butterflies I found today up there.  But just to whet your interest, I finally found the Black Swallowtails (Papilio polyxenes) I've been looking for all summer long.




A few other people make it up into this area of the beach; mostly serious fossil hunters.
 I finally turned about half way up the long beach (a little beyond this point).
 Another person looking for fossils..

Once back on Calvert and Long Beaches, the traffic had picked up. It's good to see young people outside, and not playing video games..



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