June, 2022
On my first morning here, it was the beach that circled Birch Bay that called to me. I’d not been to Birch Bay before, even though I have lived in Washington State for most of my life. As a boater, I’ve been to a whole heck of a lot of salt water beaches up and down Puget Sound and in the San Juan Islands in Washington State and never found one I didn’t like. 🙂 I figured I would like the Birch Bay beach too. I sure did.
In the image below, Birch Bay State Park (where I was camped) is the RED DOT, along with a RED LINE which is the road that led directly out of the campground and right onto the road that runs right along the beach. The PURPLE LINE is the border between Canada and the USA.
It was so thoughtful of the folks who designed this place to include lots of parking along that beach road. I was here in early June (not maybe kids out of school yet so not much camping going on, and the weather was cool-ish, and I was here mid-week). I had the place to myself!
I parked the truck and simply walked across the road and found an easy, short trail down onto the beach. The tide was out, I loved that … more exploration opportunities.
Photo below, looking to the left along the beach, a jam-packed housing area down there on that outcrop of land. [I’ll drive out there and show you some of the houses … next blog post, I think.]
Looking to the right (below) … Birch Bay. There are homes along the edge of the bay in the far distance, but down here where the Birch Bay State Park is there were no homes, and almost no visitors except for me.
Well, there was this one fellow out there on the edge of the water (below) who came ashore for a second or two with his paddle board, then he was back out on the water and paddled further up, to the right, to some other part of the beach.
Oh, but look! In the lower right corner of the photo below. Look who was smart enough to jump in the truck at the campsite, then jump out of the truck here, and scurry across the road. Little Towhee! 🙂
Little Towhee is always up for an adventure, especially on a beach where things smell interesting and where there’s lots of cool stuff to see that she never sees at home.
Ok, come on Little Towhee, let’s get out on that beach!
Something smelly already. That’s a clam shell, an old clam shell. There are millions of those on the beaches of Washington. Humans take the clams for eating and leave the shells behind, so do seagulls, and river otters, and herons, and eagles.
Out on the rocky part of the beach now, Little Towhee finds two more different kinds of clam shells, also without their former inhabitants.
The shell on the left is likely a Cockle Clam. The shell on the right is likely a Butter Clam (with a bunch of barnacles attached to the shell).
Oh gosh, here are more good things to sniff. This little bird finds the best stuff.
On the left is a white cylindrical, circular shell (broken) … I don’t know what it is, tho I see lots of them. It’s not a bivalve. Is it a whelk? What is it? On the right is a piece of a shell of a large Red Rock Crab.
Oh, look, Little Towhee found almost a whole Red Rock Crab and it’s real stinky! 🙂
Almost a whole one. This one was missing its claws (the claws have lots of meat in them so predators chomp them off quickly), and this crab shell was quite faded because it has evidently been on the beach in the sun for quite some time. It was only about 3″ from tip to tip so it was a small one. Again, when we turned this crab shell over, there was nothing inside the shell. Besides the human and marine life mentioned above who eat clams (and crabs), it’s also true that starfish (Sea Stars) eat sea creatures like crabs and clams and such. Your marine neighbors are not always very friendly to each other!
I spent a couple of hours on just this one part of the beach, walking on the sand or out on the rocks. I don’t usually go way out to the green seaweed when the tide is out since it’s slippery out there. The sky was blue, there was no wind, the sun was just warm enough. Little Towhee and I were the only people on the beach. There is a more popular (and populated) portion of this public beach further up the road a bit, but Little Towhee and I were perfectly happy right here.
One last look out over the salt water of Birch Bay (for today anyway, we’ll be back later in the week) and then it was time to head back to the campsite for lunch.
This was a lovely walk! You find the best places to explore…but maybe that’s all Little Towhee’s doing!
Sometimes it sure is her doing. Or even if I’ve decided to go see a place, walk somewhere, she makes me look at details that I would miss. I can pass on SMELLING what she smells, but I like looking. 🙂
Interesting article in today’s Seattle Times about cockles in this area. The mollusks are now under study in a Seattle lab hoping to determine why a leukemia-like cancer called desiminated neoplasia has been increasing since 2018 in the Salish Sea. Not transferable to humans, the disease will be analyzed by drawing cockle “blood” to determine how it evolves and spreads. See https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/researchers-rush-to-find-cause-of-contagious-cancer-in-pnw-clams/ for May 22, 2023
Kathie, you are stupendous. Thank you for that link and the info. I changed the link in your comment so the link goes directly to the article. I bet you won’t mind that I did that. But what a troubling thing is happening to Cockle Clams! I’m sad and worried about it, but it’s important to pay attention to these things. Changes seem to be happening so fast lately, when they should take thousands of years.
We don’t live anywhere near a beach. This was marvelous! We’ve been to beaches in California and Mexico but they are usually just miles and miles of sand with none of the cool (and smelly!) things you have on your beaches. This was great.
I’ve been to beaches in Cal and Mexico too and yes most of them are endless miles of sand (tho I bet there’s interesting stuff there too). I adore Pacific Northwest beaches. Oregon has terrific beaches, go for a drive. 🙂
Little Towhee is one cool bird. 🙂
She is! 🙂
Our northern Pacific beaches are the best. And we agree, even when the tide is out, or maybe especially when the tide is out, the tide flats smell great. Love Little Towhee, glad she’s making sure you get out for adventures. 🙂
Both of us have lived here all our lives (except for some RVing) and we’ve seen those white shells too on many beaches, but we don’t know what they are, never heard of a “whelk”. Someone needs to teach us!
Janey
Isn’t it funny how we who have lived here all our lives don’t know so many things? Maybe that’s true for lots of people everywhere, I hope so. 🙂 I hope we’re not the only ones. Here’s to wonderful tide flats.
That’s a great beach. And a great tour of edible shellfish. Little Towhee bird sure has a nose for smelly “stuff”. 🙂
Nice photos of the beach. Looks great for walking.
Yep, great walking beach for sure with sand and small rocks, and slippery green stuff too. Little Towhee (and I) thank you Greg. 🙂
Great map/image. I like that you post those. Great Pacific Northwest beach, I feel a slight breeze, and can smell that the tide is out, such a gentle smell. Yes, I suspect that white, broken, circular shell is a whelk. There are all manner of varieties. Little Towhee is terrific. I always look forward to your next blog post. Thank you!
Thanks Bill. I always want to see where other people travel to, where they are on a map. Oh, you must have knowledge of tide flats, “such a gentle smell” yes. Thanks for the comment about the whelk. Another Reader/friend emailed me separately and said indeed it is a whelk. My Readers are the best. 🙂
Wasn’t there a star fish (sea star) disease a few years ago? such that they were dramatically reduced in number? Yes, cockle clams are threatened by a new “disease”. One wonders why. And yet, I love the beach … Little Towhee’s view of the beach … and Ann’s larger view of the beach. I don’t live near a saltwater beach, I wish I did!! I miss it.
Yes, Lori, you obviously read! There is a sea star disease that killed hundreds of thousands of sea stars (star fish) here in Puget Sound, and is still killing them. It’s a disease that comes around every few years, but because the ocean is warmer these days, the star fish are more susceptible. As well, star fish eat kelp (among other things), and there is a great deal less kelp because of rising water temperatures in just the past 20 years or so. There is hope that star fish will make a comeback, as they have in the past, but MANY more of them have died this time around.
I am so blessed to live near the saltwater and rocky/sandy beaches. Little Towhee and I hope you can visit one soon, Lori.
I’ve never lived near the ocean. The water and the beaches you show us are glorious! This evening I used Google Earth to get a closer look a Puget Sound. I figured it was just a bay, an inlet, something like that. WOW!!! It’s huge and convoluted and has dozens (hundreds?) of islands, as does Canada just to the north of Washington. I didn’t have a clue. Ok, I’ll be going back now to other camping trips of yours to check out your maps to see and learn more about Puget Sound. Is Puget Sound in Canada too?
Oh, Nebraska, there’s nothing like Puget Sound! Well, maybe the Canadian Gulf Islands just to the north of us. Puget Sound really is huge and special.
Some people (even some who live here) think Puget Sound goes all the way from Olympia, WA, in the southern end of it and then all the way north to the border with Canada. It does not. It doesn’t even cover all of the saltwater in Washington. There’s a new designation of all of this saltwater, from Olympia, WA, up to the northern end of the Strait of Georgia (well up into Canada) … it’s called the Salish Sea, in honor of native coast Salish people. The term isn’t meant to replace the other names, but to complement the other names/areas and to raise consciousness in both the USA and Canada about taking care of the region’s waters and ecosystems. We are in this together!
Thanks for asking. 🙂
Perfect. Where Little Towhee goes, I’ll go!
🙂 Ain’t she sweet?