Okay, more things that don't belong on the beach.

The worst: styrofoam, which never goes away, just gets smaller and smaller.

And of course plastic items of various kinds...

A few plastic straws as well.

Finally, some old bottles.  One of them has been in the ocean for awhile.  It is encrusted with barnacles.

Let's throw our garbage in the bin, not on the beach!

There has been a lot of sand-sculpting on the beach since my post in May 2014 on sand creations.  In January I spotted a delightful little sand-man:

And recently there has been a large variety of sand castles:

Your basic castle keep,
with servant quarters...

A triple-towered castle...

Triple-tower deluxe with extra fortifications and moat...

A sand fortress complete with flagpole...

and a sand burial mound.

Someone was left behind to stand guard...

A very ambitious project!

Then of course we have a couple of mermaids:

A very relaxed mermaid with lovely seaweed hair...

and an elaborate mermaid/dolphin combo, with central pool...

The dolphin mermaid has long flowing tresses...

And next we have my personal favorite, the sand-turtle:

 

Oh, and in a class by itself, a wet-sand-dribbled mountain:

Well done, everyone!

Yesterday was a hot sunny day, and it was a Sunday.  Therefore, there were crowds.

In spite of the crowds, however, there was also...

...a Great Blue Heron

He didn't seem to know what to make of all the people, but he stood his ground.

Notice the strong, sharp beak, which is perfect for catching fish.

And here is a video:

"

If you look closely you'll notice little holes here and there on the beach, with little bits of sand and whatnot near them, like this. These holes are the burrows of Ghost Crabs (also known as Sand Crabs).  You don't usually see the actual crab, because by the time you've spotted the little hole, the crab has long since spotted you and zipped inside. These crabs are very small and quick, and they match the color of the sand exactly.

Can you spot the crab?

Here is a video of a Ghost Crab at its burrow.  My apologies for the wobbly camera-work; I'm zoomed all the way in so as not to scare the crab away.

Thank you David for composing the music for my video!

Now that we've set the clocks forward we can start going down to watch the sunset after dinner.  The sunset this evening was wonderful.

The water was like an abstract painting.

I went down to the beach early this morning--well, early-ish.  I was hoping to see more interesting birds, like the spoonbills I saw once before when I went to the beach early.  The wind was blowing fairly briskly and it was cold (at least, it felt cold to me: it was in the low fifties).  There were no spoonbills, but a couple in wedding garb were having their pictures taken.

Nice dress but she must've been very cold (the photographer is wearing a jacket with the hood up)! There are a lot of weddings on our beach.  On most nice weekends you'll see a be-ribboned arch somewhere on the beach, white folding chairs set in rows, flowers.  Of course, with a beach wedding you can't predict what the weather will be like, or how windy it will be.

Another beautiful day.  I don't know why this happens, but some days you find more of one particular kind of shell, and today I found a lot of one of my favorites, the comb bittersweet clam.  Usually I find one or two, but today I found over 30!

I like how each one is unique, each pattern different; even the tiniest shell has its own individual design. Beautiful things are not always symmetrical, predictable. And often even what is not "beautiful" can still amaze and impress us.  As I reflected on this I thought of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem, "Pied Beauty."

GLORY be to God for dappled things—

  For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

    For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

  Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;

    And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

  Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

    With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

                  Praise him.