I wiped away the weeds & foam. / I fetched my sea-born treasures home... Ralph Waldo Emerson







Sunday, October 20, 2013

Full Moon, Low Tide

click any photo to enlarge/ see slide show.



Hi! The October Harvest Moon brings very high, and very low, tides to my beach.


I've been watching all week, waiting for the lowest tide, often a best time to look for treasures...



The moon was full on Friday, rose in the deep blue velvet sky. And in the west, a shiny beacon just opposite: the evening star of Autumn, Venus. Brighter even than the landing lights of the planes headed to the city's airports.
The high tide can bring flooding...




No treasure except an oddly huge amount of children's plastic sand toys, sadly lost or abandoned at summer's end. I only picked up this one small bird. Doesn't he look just like the Twitter logo! But for me he may be a quilt template, birds are a popular primitive applique motif.


One huge driftwood plank has washed up. It is silvery old oak, perhaps two feet wide and twelve feet long, 6 " deep. It would make a spectacular mantel or tabletop...


Yesterday I timed things better, caught the very low tide. The ocean was so receded that the first sand bar was exposed..




... but again, no seaglass, only these two tiny shards.



Many birds to enjoy though.


Busy sandpipers...




The late remaining oystercatchers..




Their departure is now three weeks late. Are they fooled by the very warm weather? Or might they winter over?


 
Here they are with Gully.
 


Some piping plovers remaining also.
 
 
It was a gorgeous day for a walk, the water so blue...



And I did find a maybe-treasure on my way home. I detoured through my small neighborhood, checking out the busy flocks of warblers and kinglets in the shrubbery and occasional trees. On recycling day, sometimes folks set ''good stuff'' on the curb, for passersby.



I couldn't  resist this blue delft bulb pot!



Funny egg shape...definitely worth a rescue, a wash, and  some pretty red tulip bulbs to cold condition in my deck bin. If that doesn't work, in the spring I'll replant with supermarket crocuses or daffs...



Final sky note: tonight, Sunday  October 20, there is a meteor shower, the Orionides. This means the shooting stars originate [not really, but apparently] in the constellation Orion, which will hover over the dark ocean late tonight. Worth putting a sweater over my pjs and going out for a look! You too?

Shooting stars and wishes---who can resist?


love

  lizzy

gone to the beach..............


And a little live action: see the sanderlings playing in the waves, having their baths! So cute...