Mis llaves

Preface:

We had agreed to meet early for coffee and a walk on Indian Point.

I was up and dressed* early. I was ready to go. Wait, no keys. How had I lost them? I hadn't unpacked - just fell into the bed.

Still, my keys were gone.

I gave up looking and headed downstairs for coffee and sympathy. RF gave me a look. "Didn't you get my text?" he asked. Oh. I had asked him to get something out of my car the night before and he had pocketed my keys. Relief!

Walk:

Now, you've been on this walk with me before. You know there will be photos - lots of shells and birds and plants. But as much as we have walked here before, it is always different. It seemed very different today.

We walked the shoreline. The tide was out and so we did not worry with waves.

RF was looking for a small piece of driftwood. I was trying to behave - taking photos and trying to remember the names of all the creatures and plants as RF spied a new one and identified it - pointing out significant details.

Ducks flew in formation. An osprey changed its perch a few times and flew over long enough for me to appreciate the graceful gliding curve of its wings.

We talked a little of past walks and plans for future trips. We laughed at the mix of prints - birds and raccoon - in the soft sand.

No hermit crab sheltered lightning whelks this time, only birds and flowers and uninhabited shells.

"Why is this place called Indian Point?" I asked. RF replied that it is likely Native Americans camped on the shore, fishing and harvesting oysters in the shallows. [I have always seen oyster shells here, but never the structures seen on this trip.]

I have neither fished here nor gathered oysters, but I will walk here again and again when given a chance.

As we got in the car it looked like we wouldn't see the sun, but there it was as we arrived at the pier. Yes, there were folks fishing.

A new breakwater has been added since my last walk here. It's been a few months.

I would make this walk every day if I lived here.

A little blurry, but this heron stood on a post just outside of the breakwater. Before too long he took flight.

As always, lots of remains.

Beach Evening Primrose

It's a little pinker/purplier than this, but the camera I was using never takes a good purple. This is the unidentified flower.

Seaside oxeye daisy

Seaweed washed up.

Barnacle encrusted driftwood

Footprints - raccoon and, I'm guessing, gull and sandpipers

More footprints.

The unidentified grows madly.

Gaillardia blooming rather early. [Sorry such a blur - it was well out of sensible lens shot]

Beautiful driftwood pieces - some enormous - littered the beach.

Wolfberry** blooms

A few wolfberries still cling to the stem.

Cockle shell

"Totem," I thought.

The sun melts and drips fire into the sea as the birds fly by.

Yucca and prickly pear

These metal posts made us wonder. They were lined up along the beach - rusting sentinels. Were they part of an old fence, a roadway? a pier? The large bird wading is a curlew.

Pintail ducks

I'm going to say "gulls".

Alien landscape of moss/seaweed covered oyster shells

Oyster castle

The remains of an effort to save the shore perhaps...

Receding water leaves traces in the sand.

Some kind of skull (we found two).

Knot held.

About time to turn around.

As children we sifted through tiny shells on a beach some miles away. We looked for and found small pieces of coral.

Still Life with Oyster Shell

Experimental photo taken through a gap in a rusty metal post.

Even more prints...we added ours.

Should I add that I gathered no driftwood (only a few tiny shells).

Feeding

How can anyone resist shorebirds?

The skulls - anyone know what these are?

A bamboo flute floated in on the tide.

Not from the beach walk, but from home.

My children would say, "We know when we are near Grandma's house when we see the coconut trees." Well, they are date palms, but I thought it very observant.

LISTS:

Birds***

white ibis
osprey
redhead ducks (of course)

curlew

stilts

sandpipers

sanderlings

herons

egrets

black ducks

pintail ducks

many gulls

brown pelicans

white pelican

Flowers and plants****
wolfberry
primrose
gallardia
aster
mangrove
prickly pear
yucca
(and actually one wildflower not immediately identified - stay tuned)


NOTES:

*Okay. I was tired. I sat down on the bed and fell asleep in my clothes.
**Whooping cranes feed on the berries. This is RF's photo. http://www.fws.gov/refuge/Aransas/wwd/science/i_m/wolfberry.html
***You realize the details in the variety of birds is due entirely because RF knows. I would just say ducks and other shorebirds.
****See *** above.