♥ Goodbye~Huntington Beach SP ♥

Howdee all,

It had to end…it was time to move on..

Our last evening and morning at

♥ Huntington Beach State Park, SC ♥

 

From our campground..I heard the roar of the ocean..much louder than any day of the 12 days we were at Huntington Beach.

The waves were larger, more white caps..

It was windy..and cold on the beach..

We decided to head back to the campground and walk to the causeway to catch the sunset.

On our way we noticed rainbow colors shining thru the clouds..

My friend Barb Padgett posted a photo on my facebook wall a few days earlier of

Circumzenithal arcs..

In a previous post I saw similar colors in a cloud…

I didn’t think that the Circumzenithal arc..looked like what I saw..

When my sister posted this link to

Fire Rainbows..a few of the photos looked more like what I saw..I learned that both fire rainbows and Circumzenithal arcs are one and the same.

In another post I have photos of a Sun dog

To me the rainbow colors I saw this day looked more like Sun Dogs

What do you think?

We took the trail thru the dunes and headed for

The causeway..

For the sunset…

It did not disappoint!

The following morning we took our last walk on the beach…

We knew that the previous nights surf might have washed a few things ashore..

It was still high tide so we didn’t see much debris.

We did see a Park ranger empty a crab trap that washed ashore..

He left the crab in the low tide area..

The tide was turning to low and the crab were stuck there…

We would have loved to scoop them up and boil them up with some Old Bay seasoning..

We didn’t..

we were at a State Park and it wasn’t  allowed..

Instead…we threw them into deeper water..

We walked a bit further..

Below Jeff walks with a handful of plastic…

Jeff and I both collected lots of plastic bags that had washed ashore…

Further down the beach..

A banded Ipswich (Savannah) Sparrow

This one had some yellow..

A lovely end to a wonderful stay at

♥ Huntington Beach State Park, SC ♥

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We are now in Hollywood!

Not California ..

Stay tuned!

Look what the storm brought in..

Howdee all,

A few days ago it was windy and rainy all day..

The following morning we knew we had go to the beach.

Its always fun to walk the beach after a storm…

Check out the interesting things the storm brought in..

I don’t know what many of these things are…

Starfish

I was told the blobs we were seeing were

Sea Pork

SEA PORK, Amaroucium stellatum, a large colonial ascidian found attached to rocks. Its smooth, slippery test comes in a variety of handsome colors ranging through pink, green, red and lavender. Along many parts of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, beachcombers find these rubbery chunks of protoplasm cast upon the beach. They range from a few inches to chunks weighing 10 pounds, and produce good tadpole larvae in the spring.

The tunicates. Who would believe that these large, fleshly blobs resembling a sponge for all practical appearances, are one of the most highly evolved of all marine invertebrates? In their adult form they are little more than a water pump, pumping water in through their vascular system, extracting nutrients and pumping the water out. It is in their larval stage that the tunicates display the characteristics which make them part of the same chordate phylum to which all fish, birds, reptiles and mammals belong.

Habitat:
Sea pork is subtidal, found from the low tide line to depths of approximately 30 feet.  Colonies grow on hard substrates such as mangrove roots, rock jetties, pilings and floating docks.

I don’t know if this is also sea pork

Sea weed of some sort

There were blobs of sea pork all over the beach.

Many shapes, sizes and colors

This was very interesting..and sculptural

Sea cucumber

Shrunk when touched..

Sand Shark?

Egg casing of some sort?

Holy Sea Pork!

A type of sea sponge?

More Pork..

This specimen was over a foot long..

Purple Pork and weeds..

We did see a few birds as well..

This little peep was a real treat to see.

Piping Plover

An interesting day at the beach.

…………………………………………………

We just left Huntington Beach State Park this morning..

headed to Charleston SC for a few days.

See you there!

Causeway Birds and North Beach

Howdee all,

 

A few days ago Jeff and I had a late start to our daily walk so we decided to try a different loop …

 

Instead of doing the 5 mile walk to the jetty and back we thought since it was low tide we would see what birds were hanging out at the causeway…we would walk to the jetty from there and loop back to the campground catching the setting sun.

The causeway is a short half mile walk from the campground.

Huntington Beach State Park..

A nice mix of Snowy Egret and White Ibis

Black-bellied Plover

White Ibis and Snowy Egret

The shells in the photos are oysters..

Immature White Ibis

Great Egret

We left the causeway and walked the nature center, we walked the pier into the marsh area, seeing more shorebirds, Egrets, and Pelican.

Walking off the boardwalk I spotted the outline of a Volkswagen Beetle sticking out of the grass..

I was wondering why they didn’t remove it..

OH..

ha ha..that’s why!

Sure fooled me!

We left the Nature Center and walked to the north parking lot and onto the beach for the 1.5 mile walk North Beach to the jetty.

I stopped to pull a Valentines balloon out of the surf…

Beach art brought in by the surf..

Jeff shadow dancing..

The beach is ever changing..

this day we come across many starfish.

Jeff and I did a quick walk to the east end of the Jetty to peer at the Razorbill again..

We then walked to the west end of the jetty onto the inland beach.. to look for shorebirds..

Semipalmated Plover and Dunlin.

Short-billed Dowitcher and Dunlin..

We lingered here watching shorebirds until it was time to walk the 2 miles back to the campground..

We timed it right..

It was not a colorful sunset..but it was lovely..

looking behind us I notice the sun streaming thru a hole in the clouds…

We stop and talk to another couple walking north toward where we came from..

And watch them move further away..

The view south..

We turn and face north again for some shadow fun..

Walking south toward the campground..I notice some rainbow colors coming from the clouds..I took a few photos to try and capture the subtle colors..

Does anyone know what causes this, or what it is called?

We leave the beach talking the pathway back to the campground..

A deer greats us..

And in the dark of the woods…

I find the final photo of the day..

WE

Huntington Beach State Park