Beach Weekend!

Posted at 8:17 PM, Monday, March 31, 2008

We went to the beach this weekend to get some much deserved rest following a tough week of Audubon Camp, colds, and paper-writing. We met members of the Turner Family to celebrate birthdays, especially Max's 30th!

Andie, Max, Sarah, Sarah's cousin Sydney, and Sydney's friend Alex surveyed dead birds at Bob Straub on Saturday afternoon. A few raindrops passed through, but all had a good time.

Sydney and Alex are now expert identifiers of Northern Fulmars, as we found 19 dead ones on the beach. We also found a Common Murre and parts of a pelagic cormorant we had previously counted.

At the end of the mile, we found six birds within a meter of each other! we lined them up and processed them as quickly as possible. Notice the worn-out assistant on the right.

On Sunday morning, Andie and Max went out for a dog jog and found themselves on a white beach!




Spring returned by the afternoon, and Andie, Max, Sarah, and Greta surveyed their second beach at Sand Lake. We only found seven fulmars at this beach and Andie dug for beach treasure.


In this case, the treasure was apparently crab claws which she rolled on, then ate despite commands to the contrary. They do not appear to have disrupted her digestion.


On Monday, we packed up, worked on the beach house, spotted a few birds at Whalen Island, and returned to Hillsboro.