Rain is not much of a problem as long as there are no dead birds to identify. You trundle along, dutifully peering into the drift (the beach face is totally clean-swept, you can see without looking that there is nothing to record). As long as you never have to unship the COASST bird pack —flopping down in the wet to juggle gloves, clipboard, measuring tools, ID book, camera, one's self-confidence, and oh yes a featherduster corpse— walking in the rain is what rain gear is for, and it's beautiful out.
Wood, cobbles, shingle, pebbles, sand. It's certainly not the case that nothing accumulates at Rialto Beach. But the small movables mostly aren't visible. Scarcely any wrack. Very little trash. No dead birds, or crab parts, or even stray feathers. They must arrive, if the wood does; so then what happens? Carried away again? Buried under the shingle?
Saw an eagle in a tree north of Bear Creek, and she/he was still there when I was back on the highway several hours later. Saw an eagle out over the ocean, lost track of it, not sure where it hangs out. The mouth of Ellen Creek had shifted much further to the north, and the creek in its sweep into new territory had undercut trees on the freshly carved north bank. Down they came.
The leaning ghost tree is apparently never going to fall over. I'm bored with taking pictures of it. It occurs to me that once it comes down and the tide moves it, I won't necessarily know which uprooted dead tree somewhere on the beach—if it is somewhere on the beach and not carried away— is the right one.
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