Beachcombers

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 A few months ago I joined the Beachcombers volunteers surveying a local beach, overseen by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Sharon McGuire, a twenty year volunteer has been mentoring me. The surveying is quite fascinating and has captivated my interest.



 

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 Beachcombers began surveying over 20 years ago with 22 volunteers working 11 beaches in the Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary. It now encompasses beaches from Santa Cruz to Los Angeles Counties and has around 90 volunteers collecting data.
 
 There are beaches locally that need volunteers, if anyone is interested.

 

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 Pics from yesterday's survey;



Our starting point of Del Monte Beach.



 A Mola mola, one of the few fish we record.



A Brandt's Cormorant

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 A sea lion carcass, found originally in October's survey.





 identifying a Common Murre(#5 on the chart)

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 This is an unidentified(as to a volunteers expertise) Marine Mammal(MM), a Pinniped(PINN), most likely a sea lion.

Noted as:
MM 1st photo
PINN
0/1 twine
Unidentified Pinniped
Decomposing
Scavenged
145-160cm length (no head or tail)
36.606'N 121.867'W

 The survey APP is cool. You check boxes(which has enormous appeal to some and can be addictive) and can make observation notes, record your current GPS location, and take a pic of the subject.

 

[Brad Young]

Very cool, thanks for sharing.

The house on the VERY edge of the cliff in your last photo definitely caught my attention too.

[F4?]

Kink, we will have to meet up in Monterey sometime for a few beverages.

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 Thanks, I really do look forward to going.

 The house on the seawall grabbed my attention too. I had only had only seen it from a distance and had no idea that the condo's were constructed as such.

 F4, I was going to put this on your Diving topic page, thinking that it correlated. What happened to it? Let me know when you are coming to Monterey next.

 

[F4?]

Depends on my pinnacles agenda...which is hard to balance with the nice ocean conditions.

[mynameismud]

carnage

[JC w KC redux]

Great appetite suppressant.
Watch you don't burn that Flikr candle at both ends.

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Non-carnage pics at Garrapata beach.



 -1.8 low tide yesterday



 Walk the Plank in the sun, for those who boulder there.



 Only two birds found, one had a small amount of tar on it.

 Del Monte Beach survey is tomorrow.

[JC w KC redux]

Cool window in that outcrop.

Walk the Plank looks pretty friable - does it slant up and lead to the corner/exit (decent sandstone?) - at least the landing looks good.

Great reflection shot - nice catch.

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 Here is another view of Walk the Plank. The sand is low now so it is probably 20 feet . Goes through the tapered rectangle shaped shadow. Off balance. Munge would like.

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Del Monte Beach survey today.



 26 of the 33 birds we found today were Northern Fulmars. Much higher rate of death than normal.
 
 "When under attack from predatory eagles, the fulmar chick will projectile a stream of putrid bright orange vomit at the intruder." These birds stink!





Seafoam bubbles from heavy surf.

[Brad Young]

Trivia for the day:

Fulmar was the name of a British World War Two carrier based fighter airplane. It wasn't a very good fighter, but it could land and take off from a carrier at sea.

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 Under 10 birds, the lowest found since I started! There are a lot of factors affecting this including tides, molting, breeding and migration. Much to learn.




 This guy/gal's corpse isn't aging as well as Brad's legs.



 The end of our beach/survey when going south to north to avoid the afternoon sun in our eyes. I wonder if Aaron was one of the human birds above the horizon on Tuesday?

[F4?]

Looks like horrible weather!

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Looks like horrible weather!

 The climate here sucks, the Central Valley on the other hand...

[Brad Young]

...this guy/gal's corpse isn't aging as well as Brad's legs.

I show this shit to Vicki and I'm not sure whether she's laughing at you or with you.

Maybe both.