Fire! (just a small one, really)

Rounding the top of the hill early this morning, the smoke was easily apparent on the north side of the creek, even though the sky and the surrounding fog shared the same color. A small fire on this cold early morning, likely started by an illicit camper or early morning fisherman looking for a quick dose of warm. One cluster of smoke rises from behind a large, barkless redwood log that found its way to the beach a long time back. A finger of black traces up the hillside, maybe 30 feet higher into a patch of pampas grass. Heavier smoke floats up as the matted bases of each cluster of the exotic grass smokes then flares. A lone CDF firefighter outfitted in yellow nomex and a red helmet pulls apart the driftwood piles at the base of the big log while a few others watch from the warmth of their vehicles at the end of the dirt road. Otherwise there's not much going on here.

The gulls on the south bank of the creek don't seem to mind the extra activity this morning.

Avian interlude

(It's crappy out there today, but 'tweren't so yesterday afternoon when I'd planned on penning this piece.)

A hazy Monday afternoon. A clear, cool breeze brushes the beach when I'm finally able to peel my arse from the office chair and step out for a post-prandial saunter. Choppy waves are bereft of pattern. The everpresent low grumble of constantly churning water strums the bass as stereophonic trebles from breaking and running waves roll from the left ear to the right.

A dozen gulls at the mouth of the creek become two hundred in a manner of minutes, small flocks diving in from points west. A small California gull coasts the rippling creek from the estuary to the breaking edge of the closest wave, flapping off just in time to return to the estuary and ride the creek out again.

A single seal glides through the narrow channel from the calm estuary to the tempestuous surf, popping up just once to make sure I'm holding to my spot on the bank.

In the estuary, six grebes are joined by a double-crested cormorant for an afternoon of quiet fishing.

An osprey flaps silently above me, his black masked eyes to the ground, heading southward into the wind.

Loud twittering killdeer frantically pace the mostly dry south slough channel.

A great blue heron knows I'm approaching before I get there. He honks away on slow, lumbering wings trusting the cows on the other side of the slough more than me.

The neighborhood northern harrier posts up high above the alders, twirling softly, soundlessly.

A pair of male mallards cruise overhead. Amateur birders everywhere applaud their bright green heads.

Least sandpipers prance and dip in the exposed muddy floor of the draining creek.

An artfully camouflaged Wilson's snipe traces the grassy edges of the south slough. His mate (her mate?) emerges briefly from a hole carved into the deep grassbed before disappearing back inside. Alas, the time has come for me to do the same.

First of May

10am, Friday morning, the first day of May, just before low tide.

Unusually calm out here this morning. Almost no breeze to speak of. A flat, gray-blue sky. The ocean quieter than it's supposed to be. Feels more like a summer on Blue Hill Bay than the roiling Pacific coast.

A western grebe sits just out of reach atop the placid sea, wrestling a slender silvery fish into position for the long slide down his white gullet. Further out a black'n'white-backed loon rises and falls on modest swells.

Reading Rock seemingly floats above the ocean six miles out. The ebbing tide uncovers a rocky path from the north side of the creek to the Sisters. Dark boulders, usually unseen, surround Little Girl Rock. A single long wave breaks a hundred yards offshore indicating a shallow sandbar raised by gravels carved from the redwood hills and transported downhill in the belly of the creek.

The sun tries in vain to crack the gray clouds. It never quite makes it through, though the sky brightens and warms my neck nonetheless.

Three cormorants zip by as I reach the mouth of the creek. The waves are taller here and crash more loudly where they meet the creek's rushing waters. The mouth bends to the south, the lack of recent rain slowing its push to the ocean.

Three dozen gulls rest on the peninsula separating creek and ocean. Western gulls, California gulls, and a single Heerman's gull, his orange bill and charcoal gray body distinguishing him from the rest. Two Caspian terns soar above the small seagull gathering, followed a moment later by a solitary pelican gliding inches above the waves.

I follow a single line of heron tracks from the mouth back to the calm estuary. The timeless drumming of the surf gives way to the twittering of a thousand songbirds. This place comes alive in the spring. It’s long past time for me to do the same.

It's 73 friggin' degrees! I don't want to be responsible today.

Does it get any better than this?

The ocean is an almost unnatural hue of royal blue resting under an equally brilliant and cloudless sky. Gently curling, bright white breakers roll and trill on a bed of cascading pebbles.

Reading Rock, nearly five miles offshore, is squashed to half its usual size and has been dragged at least a mile closer to shore - or at least it appears so in the optical tricks played on this shimmering mid-winter day.

The temperature at the office reached 73 degrees shortly after 12 o'clock, only to plummet 11 degrees before the bells chimed half-noon.

Few travelers pause here on their Redwood Highway journey today, and most that do are in splendid moods - a tangible benefit of sunny and warm winter days. That the visitors are few allow me dive deeper into Thoreau's Walden, fast becoming my unreachable ideal for the mental meanders some read here.

White gulls dot the sapphire ocean a few yards offshore. Little Girl Rock stands stately and calm, the proverbial ship in a calm harbor.

There's little time to enjoy the beach on this most glorious of days. Try as I might, my presence is requested at an interagency meeting about soil. I can think of no better way to spend the finest day in months than sitting in a windowless conference room discussing the bureaucracy of dirt. (My apologies to those earnest soil scientists out there among my readership.) I aggressively tried to avoid this entanglement, but I was discovered before I could wander too far off.

I've been scanning the ocean for whales all morning. Though today's becalmed sea is ideal for spotting southbound spouts, none desired discovery today. If only I could've been as fortunate.

A few minutes with a solitary seagull

A lone seagull floats easily over the calm water, rising and falling on the unseasonably small waves between storms. His bright white head, free of dirty gray streaks, highlights his maturity among his kind. He’s alone, yet unbothered by his solitude. Peacefully, he coasts slowly northward atop a royal blue sea on a cold winter afternoon.

A quarter mile away, a churning flock of his brethren flip and flap above the creek. It is chaos: blurred wings, screeching heard the length of the beach, birds on the water, birds in the air, birds in constant, frenetic motion. They’re busy, every one of them. But busy with what, I can’t tell.

The sun is gold on the horizon. The breeze streaming down from the eastern hills is cold. Tomorrow’s storm appears in the distance, a dark wall of gray rising north of the setting sun. The seagull is unconcerned.

He pauses briefly when I stop to pull out my notebook. Does he wait for me? Probably not, but I imagine a kindred spirit, another soul seeking quiet and calm amid the season’s frenzy. For him, this solitary swim is a moment between storms and raging surf, away from the daily squabble for food and shelter necessary to survive the harsh winter. For me, the solitude of the beach pulls me away from the activity and noise and chaos and crowds and stress that have come to mark our American Christmas.

“Alone among others.” It’s a phrase I stumbled across in a book a couple years ago, and one that could be the pithy caption under my grainy black and white photo in life’s yearbook. In career, home and community, I am surrounded by others. Yet, increasingly, mostly by choice, and especially in this season, I enjoy my own company more than the camaraderie of the crowd. The world swirls around me, and the faster it swirls, the more I seek solitude.

In the couple of minutes I’ve paused to scribble these notes and chill my fingertips, the seagull has vanished. There’s no sign of him on the water or in the sky. The seagull flock flutters in the distance, their wings flashing white in the reflection of the setting sun. Perhaps he’s joined them. Maybe two proved too much a crowd for him.

As much as I want to imagine the gull as a spirit or heavenly metaphor intended for my personal reflection, I realize it’s mere coincidence. The cosmos don’t work that way. Still, it’s heartening to know that the search for quiet and solitude is not mine alone. It’s part of the way things work. For each of us, there comes a time to be together and a time to be alone.

Four minutes

It’s 4:40 in the afternoon, two hours since a near-minus tide turned on itself and started its return towards the crest of the beach. Even now the beach is wider than I’ve seen it in weeks. Redwood Creek’s 67 mile run extends several yards farther out in the ocean than normal. Dark rocks usually encircled by ocean waves at the outpouring creek are reachable by dry sand this afternoon.

Don’t look at the sun! Tiny circles of gray temporarily burned into my eyes force me to use my peripheral vision for tonight’s sunset. A cold wind streams down the broad boulevard of sand from the north. One hundred gulls gather at the mouth of the creek. Two large and out of place pelicans do a poor job of hiding amidst the flock of gulls.

At 4:44 the edge of the sun kisses the thin line at the end of the world. A narrow band of distant fog shades a dark line across the sun’s bottom edge. The sky mellows, pale blues slip into soft grays while a fiery orange glows on the horizon.

By 4:46 the sun is nearly halfway gone. Baby blanket colors, pinks and blues, tint the thin clouds. At 4:47, it’s just a rounded orange speed bump, then a thumb tack, then a dot.

By 4:48, the sun is gone. No flash of green. No angel choirs. No great splash or sizzling steam. Just gone. The ocean seems calmer and quieter though I know that’s my imagination. The beach darkens to a cold gray. My northbound footprints at the water’s edge are dark shadows in the sand where they haven’t already been erased by incoming waves.

Four minutes from beginning to end. Four minutes for a burning ball of gas 870,000 miles across and 95 million miles away to slide across the line between earth and sky three miles from where I stand.

In the east, in the fading pink sky, the pointed green tips of the world’s tallest trees serrate the pink-tinged eastern horizon where tomorrow, it starts all over again.

December Sunset

I closed the gate to the Redwood Highway a little after four and had the beach to myself for an hour. A cool, late afternoon breeze blew down from the north. Hundreds of gulls gathered at the mouth of the creek while dozens more rafted through the narrow outlet to the sea or flittered over the booming surf. The ocean was rough and ragged, a churning white foam stretching well beyond the last rock which stood silently above the fray a half mile off shore.

I've watched sunsets countless times in my two score and six years, but I continue to be fascinated by how effortlessly the sky melds from one color to the next and how fast the sun slides into the black line of the horizon.

Friday morning

I walk north along the beach this morning, the warming yellows of the rising sun on my right, the cool gray fog blowing softly off the ocean to my left. As the sun slowly slides above the tops of the nearby hills, the alchemy of early morning turns the low-lying silvery haze to gold.

Aggressive waves overtopped the spit last night, clearing the sand of yesterday's footprints and gullprints. Steep banks have been carved into the sloping sands by the surf. A solitary line of tracks left by an early rising fox bisects the beach.

At the edge of the estuary, two pairs of Caspian terns each stake out some private space. In each pair, a larger steely-gray backed bird stands alongside a slightly smaller, mottled brown partner. A mating pair perhaps; Caspian terns partner for life. Or maybe a mother and child, or a father and child; these largest of terns continue to provide food for their children for up several months after they're born.

In either case, my presence disturbs them all. The two closest to me squawk off to join the second pair a hundred yards or so further up the beach, safe from this Converse clad intruder. The foursome is then interrupted by an annoyed gull who chases off one of the larger birds. Moments later, the absent tern is joined in its escape by one of the smaller ones.

The estuary waters shimmer in the morning light. Across the estuary, small frogs leap silently skyward, inches above the water's surface, making a meal of low flying insects before splashing awkwardly back into the green pool. The entire estuary simmers with hundreds of tiny splashes.

Like the seals in winter though, the frogs seem to sense my presence and the splashing diminishes wherever I approach the shore. They hide well in the clear water, waiting until I've moved on or turned away before resuming their breakfast.

It feels like fall. The number of people stopping by has suddenly and dramatically diminished. Our summer staff slowly dwindles, one by one heading off to other endeavours. The hectic pace of summer melts into the reflective calm of autumn. And, once again there's time to think. Time to walk. Time to wonder. Again. Thankfully.

Our Seagull Lives

The afternoon sky’s a monochrome gray as I step on to my beach for the first time in almost a month. The Pacific is only a shade darker than the sky and equally unemotional. The gray sand is littered with footprints, human and avian, as well as detritus from both species. Wave-tossed plastic scraps and sand-scarred cans mingle with cracked crustacean body parts, forgotten feathers and white puddles of bird poop. It’s an underwhelming return to one of my favorite spots of the neighborhood.

The only flash of vivid color comes from the bright orange bills of terns and gulls gathered by the dozens in several large flocks up and down the beach. Large Western gulls and the only slightly smaller California gulls, near indistinguishable from each other, stride between the dual-gray, Heerman’s gulls with deep orange bills. The sleek black-headed Caspian terns appear to stand guard over clusters of smaller, shaggy-haired Elegant terns, the first I’ve noticed in my brief attempts at birding identifying out here.

Sitting here watching the birds, I’m struck by the apparent similarities of our two colonial species. I've started a list of some of those thoughts, wonderin’ if there’s a motivational book that is yet to be written….”A Seagull’s Guide to Life, Love, and Incredible Wealth” ©, or something of the sort. (I call dibs on the royalties if any of y’all write the book before I do, which I won’t, but I can be bought out for a decent bottle of wine, a polite mention in the acknowledgements, and a couple of signed first editions.)

How People and Seagulls are Sort of Alike

• We stand around in large groups, looking busy while doing lots of nothing.
• At the first sign of discomfort, we all fly off in different directions eventually returning to the exact same spot of sand.
• We greedily scavenge from someone else's effort, stealing what we can and squawking from a safe distance over someone else's rewards.
• We gather in large groups of many different species, but cluster closely with our own kind.
• We soar beautifully.
• Occasionally we like to stand alone, off to the side, out on the edge, away from the crowd.
• We breed easily with others, creating something new, indistinguishable, unique, and unidentifiable.
• We thrive everywhere.

Please feel free to add, delete, adjust, mock, or decry as you wish.

Hasta la proxima.

Time to think.

After weeks of running from one end of the day to the other, I'm finding a few moments like yesterday afternoon to slow down and take a little time to think. A gray day, warm with the slightest of ocean breezes beckons me to the beach. As if that's not enough, I'm further spurred outdoors by the snide rantings of our resident crank who's determined to jerk every chain in the building. I escape to the calm of the Pacific, necessarily, and finally.

It's a quiet ocean today, barely a sound from the small, regularly rolling waves. A western grebe greets me at water's edge, his long slender neck held erect as he glides over the placid waters.

An elderly man in chest-high waders leans into the small surf. His handmade tripod fish net dips into the waves, searching, as the Yurok have done here for centuries. Our fisherman today is accompanied by his wife, three or four harbor seals, a couple of cormorants, and a gaggle of gulls. Apparently he's found a good spot. That, or the critters are as hopeful as he is.

He's retired, I come to learn, and lives in Blue Lake. He and the Missus wander up here a few times every year around this time. They're not fishing for anyone but themselves, just enough to stock the freezer. As he steps from the waves up to the dry sand, he holds up the bottom of the net which contains maybe a dozen silvery smelt and says to her, "Got my dinner. What're you havin'?"

The seals roll in the shallow surf briefly stranding themselves on the wet sand before wobbling themselves back into the waves. Seems they're having more success in hunting up some lunch than our fisherman.

Cormorants are common today, and pelicans are plentiful. It's quiet. There's activity, but not much of it. A perfectly lazy afternoon. Finally, time to think.

This kind of time has been rare this past month or more. At work, seven new summer rangers have joined us, all of 'em new, and in need of training, guidance, help, research and resources, and as you might expect from the government, tons of bureaucratic papers and hoops to overcome.

The girls' softball seasons are in full swing. I don't help my own downtime by coaching both of their teams, VP'ing the league, writing and managing the league schedules and tournaments, and creating and maintaining the league website.

But our seasons have been wonderful. Our 10 & Under girls are 6-4-2 going into the end of season tournament (a loss in the tourney last night has us needing to win the next one to keep playing). They're goofy and frenetic and learning so much so quickly. Our 16 & Under team is 11-0 thanks to stellar pitching, strong hitting (including a legit over-the-heads-of-everybody home run by my very own kid last week!), and experienced defense. We're the odds-on favorite to win it all, finally, this year.

We'll have an 8th grade graduate - a valedictorian, no less - this weekend, bringing family to town, a host of school trips, 8th grade dinners, awards ceremonies, and all the attendant events and emotions. Can it really be that my tow-headed baby girl who just yesterday paddled off to her first day of kindergarten in a blue and white catholic plaid jumper is off to high school?

Redwood Creek is in the final stages of becoming Redwood Lagoon for another summer. The sand bar thickens at the creek's mouth, a wall that the dwindling force of tumbling valley streams can longer overwhelm.

Parallel to the surf lies a 200-foot long, 15-foot wide pond where the creek just a month ago took a sharp right-angle turn to the south. That pond is now closed but for a small opening, just barely leapable by a bulging mid-lifer with just enough spring left in his step.

30 Caspian terns stand at the edge of a larger flock of western and mew gulls at the mouth of the creek. They're not happy with my approach and embark en masse. These orange-billed terns are much more graceful in flight than the frantic flapping of the gulls. Their bright white wings, tipped in black and thinly curved cut the air, soaring and curling above me, barking at me to keep moving.

The creek is now a slow meander to the sea, maybe 20 feet across at its mouth but still eight to ten feet deep. The ocean continues to push in while the creek presses out, but without the violence of the winter clash. As summer approaches, the creek slows. Another week or maybe two, and the summer lagoon will become still 'til the rains return.

I've never been a fisherman. It's not a requisite element in the cultural heritage of a suburban east coast kid. It doesn't look like a bad way to spend a quiet afternoon on the beach. For now though, even the efforts of this old fisherman, quietly, purposefully, easily dipping his net up and down in the surf looks like too much work. I'm enjoying the moment just sitting here, watching him and the rafting pelicans wait for the fish to come in.

A fool on a hill

Today I have an aerial view of the mouth of Redwood Creek that didn’t exist on my last walk here two weeks ago. I’m sitting on an sliding escarpment of sand, first built up, then sharply carved by the past two months of winter rain and shifting ocean currents. On this same point of beach, where I once walked at the same level as the waves, I’m perched on the edge of an eroding precipice 25 feet above the westward bending creek.

The creek has two mouths today: the main channel rippling its way to the right and flushing into the open ocean, and a smaller, shallower channel trickling off the corner of the main channel, a tiny backwater passage that won’t exist in a few hours when its fresh banks are overrun by the incoming tide.

I can feel imminent change foreshadowed in this morning’s cool northerly breeze. By this time next month, the rains will have all but ceased. The gray sands will have closed the creek’s access to the sea as the creek is drained of winter rains and melting snow, lacking the energy to break through the sandy barrier.

Gray whales crease the placid ocean just beyond the cresting waves, shepherding their newborns through the dangerous maze of coastal rocks and orcas to the Arctic.

Geese move south, resting in the calm and shallow water of the estuary, feeding on the grasses planted for California’s happy cows.

Four Caspian terns mingle with a smaller-than-usual crowd of gulls on the thin isthmus of sand that holds back the blunt force of the Pacific from the estuary. Yesterday, a coworker spied six pelicans hovering over the surf, a sure sign that summer is not too far beyond this horizon.

There are fewer seals here now than the 40-strong horde hauled out on the beach most of last month. One surfs by in the rapids of Redwood Creek, turning a slippery shoulder back in my direction as he passes, gawking at the comparably blubber-free fool on the hill.

“We’re having more fun down here in the waves,” I imagine him calling up to me. His dark eyes laugh at the lonely figure who sits on a broken log safe from chill and power of the ocean, separated in so many ways from the seal’s world, a world of which he enviously and distantly wishes to be a part.

Beavers & Bureaucrats

It’s a cool February late afternoon, a steady breeze blows in from the north, and a not-quite-foggy haze in the pastel sky just before sunset. I’ve spent much of the day sequestered in a box we call a visitors center with little ambition to get much done and alarmingly few visitors to chat with. All afternoon I’ve stared out the front windows at a glorious day, wanting to join the gulls in their swirling and diving over the surf that sweeps in on the beach in regular and oddly horizontal waves.

Foregoing the opportunity to spend the final hour of my day in yet another box I call my office, I venture out to the mouth of the creek as the sun slips down towards a horizon hidden in distant clouds.

A large gathering of mew gulls and western gulls huddles around the mouth of the creek. I find a seat on the low bench of sand carved out by recent swift running waters from upstream. The estuary has returned to its pre-storm bulb shape as the channel narrows and calm water once again sits in its southern bend.

Every couple of minutes a surge of sea water riding on two or three larger waves pushes through the channel. The main surge pushes straight up the deeper main channel, small, rolling waves surging upstream through the boulder-lined levee walls towards town. A smaller pulse of water bends around the small sandy peninsula on the south bank of the creek, easing its way around the curved shoreline and gently swelling the estuary’s south slough.

25 harbor seals laze at the end of that tiny peninsula, the high curving bank of sand protecting them from the ocean surf. They watch me warily as they always do wondering if or when they’ll need to rock their sausage-like bodies off the dry sand into the water if I approach any closer. A couple of faint-hearted fellows bail into the water when I reach in my pocket for the camera, only to return to the beach a few minutes later when they realize I’m not going anywhere. These same two or three chickenshit seals repeat their panicked escapes twice more, once when I pull out a pen to take these notes, then again when I reach in my back pocket for a hankie to wipe away the post-flu nasal drip.

I walk back by way of the south slough of the estuary needing to head home, more to help with science fair projects than a desire to leave this spot on the beach. Just as I step onto the observation platform overlooking the estuary, I hear quiet munching. Just below me, not ten feet away sits a plump brown beaver noshing on some willow stalks. I don’t think he even noticed me for the first ten seconds or so. It was reaching (again) for that damn camera that catches his attention. He looks up at me, a bit pissed I think for interrupting his happy hour, and slides quietly into the calm, dark waters and disappears.

It was, folks, my first beaver. At least my first Humboldt beaver. I know what you’re thinking: “Bob, you’re a ranger. You must see this shit all the time!” It doesn’t happen that way. I’m more typically, by position more than desire, the office jockey doing paperish tasks and organizing other folks to get out and experience this stuff than actually getting out to play in the out of doors myself. But lately it’s the making-up of excuses to get out here so I have something to occasionally write about that’s opened up the bureaucratic blinders to everything that shares this little corner of the planet with me.

Not a bad job, eh, when you can write off an hour on the beach as a pay-worthy experience. Hasta la proxima.

....and I get paid for this?

Wednesday, 02Jan08, around 1pm, just before low tide:

It’s a hazy gray day. We’re waiting on a storm that should arrive later this afternoon or tonight. There’s a high, dark line of clouds that’s been hanging out at sea for most of the day, yet still hasn’t made its move toward the shoreline. The haze settled after lunch after a morning that was simply overcast. The sun tries to shine through but just can’t penetrate the silvery haze.

The ocean is loud today as the bottom of low tide approaches. It’s difficult to make out the sound of individual waves. Simply a continuous grumbling rumble. The waves are constant, moving, jumbled, anticipating their upslope return trip with the rising tide. Beyond the breaking waves, the ocean matches the silver of the sky, and Redding Rock slowly disappears behind a thin gray veil.

In the distance there’s a huge gathering of gulls at the mouth of Redwood Creek, bigger than I’ve seen in months. To say several hundred gulls is not an exaggeration. They mass on the wet, oval sandbar sitting at the mouth of the creek and on both its north and south shores. They float in the rushing channel of the creek and fly over the churning foam around Little Girl Rock and the two sisters.

On the south shore, 40 to 50 harbor seals have beached themselves. They rest on their bellies, some on their backs, and one reddish fellow leans on his left flipper like he’s waiting at the bar for his girlfriend to come back from the restroom.

They are of all sizes, male and female (and young’uns) though I don’t know how to tell apart from this distance other than relative size. Their colors range from very near white with dark spots, to cream and chocolate brown, as well as the aforementioned ruddy haired gent. They all have the same black-eyed face though, and each pair of dark eyes follow me as I saunter past, making sure I give them adequate personal space. I’m enjoying watching them and don’t want my presence to force them into the chilly rushing waters on this calm afternoon.

The estuary is all but gone. Where two weeks ago there was a placid, near circular pool of fresh water, today there is only Redwood Creek, wider than it was a fortnight ago, rushing straight to the Pacific. The path to the ocean is a broad avenue with no narrowing or tapering at its terminus. No ocean waves push their way into the channel this afternoon. The force of the creek stops the Pacific at the sand bar.

I’ve had this beach to myself on most of my walks in recent months. Today, a solitary birder has joined me here. He kneels on the sand, motionless, keenly focused, his eye pressed into a large spotting scope that almost certainly costs what would take me a couple weeks to earn. What is he looking at? I scan the horizon yet see only gulls. Perhaps he’s peering through the haze to one of the rocks, to something beyond the range of my 20 year old binoculars. Though I’d be well within the expectations of my paid duties to stroll over and chat with him, perhaps inquire as to what he’s found, I’m not willing to interrupt his afternoon simply to satisfy my curiosity.

In the south estuary, some new birds appear for me this afternoon. A black-headed bird with a dark back and striking white patch at the base of the chest, with reddish eyes and a hint of white on the bill - male ring-necked ducks - dot the calm waters. Lesser scaups, so similar to the ring-necked ducks but with a silvery-white back, plod along nearby. Buffleheads and a few coots, both of which have been here before join the throng. And, perhaps a few ruddy ducks, small diving birds with a dark head cap, buff body and grayish-buff back. (I’ll need to check on that last one.)

Hard to believe sometimes that your government pays me to wander around on the beach doing not much of nothin’. On days like this, it’s harder still to wonder why I have the gall to whine about it on occasion. As we enter a new year, I’ll try to remember this task is better than quality counting the elastic threads on a pair of BVD’s in Russell County, Kentucky, cuz it’s really not all that bad, huh?

A cold morning on the shortest day at the highest tide.

No, I'm not about to get all loopy and new age-y on you with the onset of the winter solstice. We had an 8-foot high tide set for near precisely the time I drive past the beach on the way to my white box government office. I couldn't resist the chance to pull off and spend an hour at the start of a day wandering, not working.

Yesterday was a chilly 35° at just past 8am. It's been like that a lot of these past few mornings. A handful of killdeer met me on the silver-frosted sand as I walked from the car to the shoreline. Out in front of me, a large mass of seagulls and even a couple wintering pelicans swirled over the churning Pacific. Waves were way up yesterday morning creating a wide swath of white foam along this stretch of beach. The wind, brisk and cold, poured down from the hills.

As I approached the mouth of Redwood Creek, western sandpipers (or perhaps semipalmated sp's?) dotted the surfline, scampering in and out of the running waves. The surf came up so fast however that nearly every quick dash into the receding tide was brief, before the next wave sent them all flying off to avoid being washed over by the sea.

At the creek's mouth, a couple hundred gulls massed on the mostly dry south bank. A few more floated on the incoming tide. Unlike times past where you could see the river competing on equal footing with the ocean, this morning, at this time, the ocean was winning the battle. Wave after wave pushed into the placid estuary, raising the water level with each push.

As I walked the estuary's edges, there was a constant tinkling of small waves breaking on the shoreline. One set of waves threatened to trap me on the once-narrow sand bar that separates ocean from creek. While counting seal heads, I heard water rushing in around my feet - from both sides. What was once a dry, 100-foot wide peninsula quickly became a narrow 30-foot slip of sand as the ocean poured over the top and the estuary filled up behind me like a bathtub.

Perhaps 25 harbor seals in the estuary this morning. It's funny how they all float, near motionless, watching my every move on the beach. I can hear their breathing in the quiet morning air, the huffing and puffing of their deep breaths. At least two of the larger ones appear agitated with me. From opposite ends of the large group, these two loudly blow bubbles - like a kid with a curly straw in a tall glass of chocolate milk - and flap their tails on the water. It's hard for to understand why this morning is different than any other walk I've taken on the beach, and what has their dander up, but I choose not to linger here, anxious both to warm up and to avoid annoying them too much.

Walking back to the south slough, more incoming waves filled the channel that was dry just last week. A couple great blue herons, some coots, and a couple buffleheads paddle in the back side of the estuary.

Hasta la proxima.

Redwood Creek: One Tuesday in December

Tuesday, 11December2007, 930ish in the morning:

I finally get out for what’s become an all-too-rare walk on the beach this morning. The first thing to strike me, besides the strong and cool breeze on my ever-thinning locks, is the large rock just off shore – some call it Little Girl Rock – sitting atop a becalmed sea. The ocean, after several days of storms and wild surf is quiet again. Long swells of regularly spaced waves stretched out the full length of this three or four miles of beach beat out a smooth, regular rhythm on the shoreline.

Little Girl Rock sits atop the blue waters like an anchored ship in port. It’s shore-side peak rises like a unfurled sail drying in the shelter of the high bluff of Orick Hill. There’s no ring of splashing ripples around its rocky hull this morning, no cresting breakers splashing white foam high up its face. It sits quietly, still in a near-waveless sea.

Near the rock’s base, not far out from the mouth of Redwood Creek, five surfers float on long boards. Watching them, you see that the water is not as smooth as glassy as it appears from farther away. They rise and fall on the gentle swells and duck beneath early cresting waves.

Every few minutes a taller set of waves roll in. I get to see what I rarely see surfers doing here: standing up on their boards and actually surfing, riding the six to eight foot waves ‘til they bail out on the sand bar that fronts the mouth of the creek. They’re not simply floating and waiting as they usually do, though that’s never seemed like a bad way to spend a day either.

I’ve never surfed, so I certainly don’t understand the science behind knowing where and when the surfable swells are best along this 100-mile Humboldt coastline. But someone out there does. The five already on the water at 930 am become thirteen by 10 am, new arrivals approaching from both north and south sides of the creek.

Five or six crab boats dot the horizon, none of them too close to the shore this morning. A couple of crab pot buoys bob in the waves, originally confused by this amateur naturalist as floating critters ‘til the binoculars prove otherwise. It’s not quite the forest of colorful lobster buoys in Maine’s Blue Hill Bay, but enough of a presence to briefly transport me east to the summer morning moan of lobster boats hauling in their traps.

The mouth of Redwood Creek is its usual maelstrom of gravity-pressed creek crashing into the persistent pressure of the Pacific. About 100 gulls dot the southern bank of the creek; perhaps a dozen others surf the back and forth waters at creek’s edge. A solitary gull stands atop the larger rock at the mouth, a winged harbormaster for ships, surfers, seagulls and seals.

Turning east to the estuary, the bright sun reflecting off the lagoon waters and the stiff breeze pouring down the creek quickly have my eyes watering. Four small wading birds whose identity is disguised by my weather-induced tears scamper along the shoreline. (Probably western sandpipers, but could just as easily be semi-palmated sandpipers.)

A dozen seal heads pop out of the water, staring me down. I look away briefly, trying to clear my dripping eyes to see the birds. When I turn back to the seals, maybe 30 or even 40 shiny gray heads stare at me.

I wander across the dry channel separating the main stem of Redwood Creek from the south slough. I wasn’t seeing birds at all until I scared up a couple buffleheads hiding in the shadows of the grassy shoreline. A few more coots dot the calm backwaters as well.

Hasta la proxima.

Oh, to be a pelican.

05 November 2007, Monday (though not etched in electrons here 'til a slow Wednesday afternoon):

I walk out the back door of the office to a red-tailed hawk coasting slowly over the dune grasses, only looking at the moment -window shopping - and apparently not finding anything of real interest.

The food's in on the ocean however. Several brown pelicans float on the waves just off shore, perhaps two dozen in all between here and the mouth of the creek. Several males with brightly shining white heads glide in and out...a sign of impending mating season? A few of the pelicans are finding food whilst sitting atop the waves, nary an ounce of effort extended in dipping their pouched jaws into the water and coming out with a mouthful of slender surf fish.

Others hover hawk-like above the brilliant blue ocean and pure white wave crests. Groups of two or three soaring cruise together 'til one, with a keener eye than his comrades, suddenly turns and crash dives into the turquoise blue. The others quickly follow his lead, each of them coming to rest with a fish bouncing around inside their yellow bills.

Oh, to be a pelican. Such an ungainly and awkward looking beast. Certainly not designed not for our People Magazine vision of beauty. Round in the gut, long skinny necks, huge feet, a large sagging jowel. They search for food, twisting and turning on the breeze, scanning the blue surface below. Their dives are clumsy, spinning, twisting, collapsing falls ending in a shallow and noisy splash. Even in eating they appear off-kilter, nodding their heads back and forth, up and down, turning a slippery, squirming fish into position inside their beak before jerking their head backwards and tossing it down like a worm in the bottom of a tequila bottle.

Everything about the pelican looks awkward...except for its magnificent, low-altitude coasting inches above the the Pacific. Gliding effortlessly, head craned back over its shoulders, legs tucked in behind, wings outstretched and curved to expertly shape the air currents above and below. There is no more magical animal show on the coast (in my silly opinion) than the flight of the lone pelican, or the tight formation of three or four of these magnificent creatures on a quiet, hazy afternoon.

Further down the beach, a large gathering of western and California gulls spans the sandy horizon. Occasionally, the entire flock lifts and takes flight, circling a few times before returning to their original plots of sand. Is it the odd, faster wave that makes panics them into these sudden aerial escapes? An unseen visitor? Jumpy juveniles?

A handful of dark, slippery seal heads pop up sporadically between the running waves. As soon as they notice me notice them, they disappear beneath the foam making me guess where they'll apppear next. This game of hide'n'seek continues for my entire saunter this morning...as, I guess, it does every time I'm out here.

There's the beginning of small sandbar at the creek's mouth this morning. A raised platform of sand just beyond yesterday's waterline, an elevated wedge that creates a second small outlet for the creek's freshwater and ocean's waves to mingle. Two gulls perch bravely atop this small mound ignoring the shallow waves washing over top, seemingly holding their claim to this private beach from the masses on the safer footing of the beach.

A handful of double-crested cormorants float just a few yards beyond the breaking surf.

Why do I have to go do "real work" when I really just want to sit here on the beach all day!?

The morning fog lifts

Thursday, 01November2007...1:30pm, about an hour after low tide:

Thursday morning, the first day of November, started off cool and foggy. Overcast, steely gray skies and low fog hinted at a long, dark Humboldt wintery kind of day. Though the forecast called for clearer skies by lunchtime, there was nothing in the air at the beach to raise the hope of anything approaching of blue and clear.

Then, at precisely 10am, as if on schedule, the flat silver curtain lifts and the world opens up around us. Gray turns white that slides into pale blue. A wispy mist hangs high above us reflecting the new-found sun creating a bright glare and squints my unprotected eyes.

The surf is high today. The waves running farther in and out than has been usual. In fact, I can count 7 or maybe 8 sets of cresting and running waves in the first quarter mile or so offshore. The roar of whitewater surrounds me as I walk the wet sand at the surf line.

There is no even wave line this morning. Several times, waves chase me and my government-issue cordovan boots back up the slope. It's a classic, sneaker wave kind of day , each wave deciding where it's own journey ends.

Every surge of ocean leaves behind a curving line of thick white foam, carbonated sea water churned and agitated by their long runs. The low angled winter sun creates mini-rainbows in the foamy bubbles.

A collage of multicolored pebbles flushed from the creek into sea, are pushed back to dry ground, their weight finally halting their return voyage below the tide line.

There is so much motion at water's edge this morning it's almost disorienting, as if I can feel the movement of the water, the movement of the earth.

A large flock of gulls - almost exclusively western gulls today - gather at the crest and ocean-side slopes of the beach near the mouth of the creek. Higher moving waves scatter the gulls in squawking gaggles that circle and return to the very same vulnerable spots moments later.














The combination of low tide and a few days without rain have narrowed Redwood Creek's channel into the Pacific. The force of downhill-moving freshwater into the onrushing saltwater waves creates a cup, a "C"-shaped bend in the powerful surf. Though the force behind the ocean's waves travel thousands before meeting higher ground, the relatively short, 67-mile gravitational force wins the day in this spot. Even though occasional strong wave will override the open channel and send its saline waters deeper into the estuary, dislodging the small group of bathing gulls, the salt water eventually ebbs and the ever-driving river channel is revealed again.

In the middle, where ocean and creek collide, swirling eddies and erratic white splashes send lines of water in all directions. The push and pull of the Pacific and the creek's rainwater continues as it has for eons. Two seals bob in and out within the tumultuous transition zone, watching me, happily fishing (or maybe just playing) in the swirling waters.

As the tide rises, large waves enter the channel more frequently, overrunning the creek's force. The mouth slowly widens. I hear the honking of Canada geese from the southern backwaters of the estuary, enjoying a rest from their long southerly journey. A few pelicans cruise past, surfing the air currents just above the breaking waves. A lone cormorant joins the seals at the mouth, ducking beneath the running white foam of each incoming wave.

Winter comes to the north coast

Monday 17October2007, around 930am...

It's been more than three weeks since I've taken the short walk down the beach to the mouth of Redwood Creek. (And precisely one month since I've chronicled it here.) Three weeks of bullshit government bureaucracy, cranky weather, short days caused by my post-work p.m. schedule, and general early fall sloth. But today I took the time seein' as how the visitors were few and we had a little extra help at the Visitor Center with the surprise arrival of one of our volunteers.

9:30 marks the morning's low tide. The slope to the surf is steep, the edges of the last high tide etched in a fresh line of waterlogged driftwood. The first real storm of the season came last Wednesday in a 2.5" soaker. Scattered showers over the weekend added more wet to the coast along with a good downpour early this morning. But now there's a nice break in the showers, a slight cool breeze from the south, and even a few patches of blue highlighting the varying shades of gray blanketing the sky.

A flock of maybe 60 Canada geese in an enormous V fly high overhead. Two smaller Vs of six and seven geese each fly inside the larger formation. There are just a few honkers in the group making me wonder if there are designated talkers in a flock of flying geese, those shouting out directions or encouraging the stragglers, or if they are simply the chatty Cathys of the bunch.

Walking north in the wet sands near water's edge, the sound of fall's stormy surf captures my attention. Visually, the waves are higher than they've been in the past couple of weeks, maybe eight to ten foot swells cresting and running to the shore in 10 second increments. But what I've not really noticed before is that it's the retreating waves dominating the soundscape. Close your eyes, as I do now, and you hear the upward trilling of the wave as it slides up and back down the coarse sands. The low drumming of the cresting waves further out are the background bass to the more lyrical run-up and back-down of each wave.

As the retreating waves slide back to the sea, they provide a smooth floor for the next wave to roll up the slope. There's a visual tension between advancing and retreating forces that slows and controls both their progress. Where the sandy slope angles to one side or the other, the diagonally backing waters force a spouting line of white foam in the full length of the incoming wave.

Approaching the mouth, the familiar flock of gulls and pelicans rest at the apex of the waveslope. They're not doing much of anything. A few sit. A few stand. And a few wander between the crowds. The pelicans bail out as I approach, the dozen or so of them bouncing three times in the sand as they build up wing speed enough to lift their bulbous bodies up and over the waves to nearby sea stacks.

There are more immature gulls out here than a few weeks ago. Dark brown and mottled, one with a nearly black head, another with dark rings around his eyes (a teen who stayed out too late perhaps?). They are western gulls, just young ones without the distinctive, clean white and gray markings of their elders.

The mouth of the creek is indeed open now. I'd been told it opened after last Wednesday's two-an-a-half inches of rain, but now I can tell y'all that I've been there and seen it for myself. I've always loved this point of clashing contact between river and ocean. The steady push of creek water is easily traced all the way into the crashing waves. The pulse of each ocean wave forces sea water over the rushing fresh water into the estuary behind the sand. In between, swirling eddies and ragged waves decorate this meeting of two worlds.

A western gull perches on a dark rock in the middle of the two watery worlds. Throughout the hour I spend in and around here, he (she?) doesn't leave, standing as a sentry on his small-scale Rock of Gibraltar.

Three seals slide in and out of this middle ground, surfing outward with the river's surge into the Pacific, and swimming back to the estuary in the calm eight foot- deep channel underneath the roiling swells.

This is my favorite corner of the beach, and love to be down as close to this joining of fresh and salt water as common sense and dry sand allow. The hazards of this spot are brought back to me suddenly when I hear water rushing in around the corner of the elevated sandspit to where I stand, my back momentarily to the ocean, eyes staring at the estuary. The water swells in the narrow channel as I scamper quickly to a higher spot of sand. My footprints are quickly erased from the wet sand, before the wave is spent and the water returns to its narrow channel. While never in any real danger of embarking on my own watery journey this time, I'm reminded that this transition zone is best left to loftable gulls and slippery seals, not slow-footed, Gore-tex booted rangers in heavy green jeans.

The estuary behind the sand spit is quiet and calm save for the occasional pulse of water from the overriding sea. The opening of its path to the Pacific has drained the estuary and its shores are perhaps 15 feet lower than they were last month. The south estuary that wrapped in behind the levee'd walls of the creek's mainstem is dry now. A flock of gulls bathe in the freshwater, furiously flapping their wings splashing water high above their heads, rocking side to side, and dipping their heads in and out of the water's surface.

A solitary egret, white and tall, stands in the rocks along the levee's edge, still, unmoving, waiting.

One pelican floats quietly, a few yards north of the splashing gulls. Just watching.

I wander up the backside of the sandspit through the piles of driftwood and back to the surf. It's just over an hour since I started this morning's saunter, but the wave heights have increased dramatically. Another storm is anticipated tonight or tomorrow that will swell the waves upwards to 15 to 20 feet high. My footprints from an hour ago are gone as the rising tide eliminates all evidence of this morning's walk.

Gray skies still dominate though small patches of blue appear between the grays allowing quick flashes of sun to hit the beach. The breeze has definitely picked up a tad.

A most glorious morning.