Wrack Line 2022

June 16, 2022

A seascape featuring clouds and a band of approaching rain in the distance
Expecting a damp morning on the wrack line
Seawatch, just coming into bloom in the foreground; cobbles, sand, and the surf zone in in the background. Cloudy skies.
Seawatch doing its job
Paintbrush presiding
A whole sand dollar shell washed on on beach sand dimpled by raindrops.
Dendraster
Mysterious drifted red blades on moist beach sand
That’s what I’m talking about
***

June 15, 2022

The view south show the band of wet cobbles from the previous high tide. Farther landward, a band of dry cobbles; seaward, a band of wet sand. Maritime forest in the background and cloudy skies.
A midnight high tide wetted the cobbles
Just the hind portion of a dead pelagic cormorant on cobbles. More or less a focus on the feet.
Pelagic cormorant
A piece of a plastic character resting on cobbles
Lost plastic piece
A previously round styrofoam float with a hole through the middle. Wear and tear has taken away some of the roundness. It's resting, along with some surfgrass, on the cobbles.
Worn styrofoam float
Pelagic gooseneck barnacles (large and a small size classes) attached to a squashed clear plastic bottle of jug, the whole thing resting on cobbles.
Pelagic barnacles washed ashore on a plastic raft
The underside of a female Dungeness crab abdomen resting on cobbles.
Dungeness crab abdomen (female)
Looks like about mussels shells, valves still attached but open, laying face up (bluish insides showing), on cobbles. One shell has a large thatched barnacle attached.
Drifted California mussels
What looks like a single step detached from a staircase washed up on the cobbles.
Step right up
A mass of surfgrass (Phyllospadix) washed up on the cobbles
Mostly Phyllospadix
Probably a bait jar lid
Wads from shotgun shells are one of the most common man-made items in the wrack line.
The wad
A single tellin (clam) valve on wet beach sand. The shell has lovely concentric rings.
Always lovely tellin
Complete shell (test) of an eccentric sand dollar (Dendraster excentricus) on wet sand.
A prized whole sand dollar
***

May 18, 2022 (Central Oregon Coast)

Seascape ranging from grass in the foreground through cobbles, sand, rocks, and reefs to the surf zone and beyond. Hazy sky.
Tide’s low and getting lower
Empty snail shell (Nassarius fossatus) on wet gravel, next to a small piece of driftwood
Empty Nassa
A commercial Dungeness crab trap wedged in the rocks. The tap is framed by large mussels. Maritime forest in the background.
Lost crab trap
Just a few capsules, a little worse for wear on wet beach sand.
Squid egg capsules
***

May 17, 2022 (Central Oregon Coast)

A dawn full moon reflected on the ocean, surf zone, and the mirror (reflective surface of the wet beach) .
Early morning moonglade
Drift logs in the cobble zone, bare cobbles and beach in the mid ground, and a massive sea stack in the distance. Just a few clouds break uo the early morning blue sky.
Big wood up in the cobbles
A fresh feather boa stipe with gull tracks and signs its been moved (also by the gulls), on moist sand.
Fresh drift feather boa just might generate some interest from the gulls
Great blue heron tracks in intertidal sands. This heron was a messy walker, leaving Lots of little balls of sand strewn about.
Great blue heron tracks | Messy walker
***

May 16, 2022 (Central Oregon Coast)

Early morning seascape. Line of rocks and a massive stack in the mid ground. Cloudy skies.
Interesting sea wrack finds await!
Pyropia
Fresh tracks in moist sand in the zone of sea wrack
River otter tracks
Empty egg cases of the channeled basket snail among a mass of drifted green seaweed, some kelp remnants, and a singe Nucella lamellosa egg case (also empty).
Empty Nassarius egg cases
Mystery red blades in most beach sand. Also appearing, Plocamium and a couple kinds of kelp stipes.
Mosty mystery
Another inscrutable red on moist sand
Neoptilota/Ptilota
Line from fishing gear tangled in a mass off drifted seaweeds
Lost line
Kind of a closeup on a single Alaria blade, probably Alaria marginata running diagonally across the image from lower-left to upper-right.
Alaria
A mostly crinkly blade of drift sea cabbage on clean most beach sand.
Hedophyllum sessile, sea cabbage
***

May 14-15, 2022 (Central Oregon Coast)

May 13, 2022 (Central Oregon Coast)

Shallow creek flowing left to right into the sea in the foreground. In the mid ground a headland just nearly impeding the southbound route along the beach. Surf zone in the background. Cloudy skies.
Expecting treasures ahead
Blue and pink soft plastic fishing lure on moist beach sand. A dark feather and a white one too, a stray whelk egg, a hard plastic fragment.and a wood chip also in the appear in the scene.
Soft plastic fishing lure
A couple varieties of white bivalve shells embedded in sediments on a beachside cliff.
Bivalve shells in ancient sediments
Bleached razor clam (both valves) on moist beach sand. A dark feather is also present.
Razor clam shell
A softball-sized cobble with numerous empty piddock burrows. A few remnant shells remain.
Piddock workings
Partially agatized (I think) fossil clam on moist beach sand.
Fossil clam
A holely calcareous cobble, with lots of empty workings running in all directions, now rounded by erosion. Close up on moist beach sand.
Probably a remnant construction of Dodecaceria (sometimes called false brain coral)
A short section of drifted eelgrass (Zostera) blade hosting the red epiphyte, Smithora.
Smithora (red) on Zostera (green)
A small detached and drifted cluster of frilled dogwinkle egg cases (approximately 20) on moist beach sand.
Sometimes called sea oats, these are the drifted egg cases Nucella lamellosa, a dogwinkle
***

April 20, 2022

View over big drifted logs and driftwood, across cobbles and beach sand to the surf zone and a headland in the distance.
From the zone of big wood
This image labels the surf zone (a zone of wet sand and cobbles), the wrack line (with a fair amount of driftwood), a zone of bare cobbles, and a zone of big storm-driven drift logs.
Fragment of an empty mussel shell (portion of both valves) and another white shell fragment (unidentified) on a bed of wet cobbles
Shell fragments in the cobbles
Drifted tuft of a branched coralline, maybe Bossiella, on wet cobbles.
A tuft of drift coralline
Empty green false jingle shell, topside up, on wet sand
Pododesmus macroschisma, green false jingle
Empty green false jingle shell, flipped over to expose the underside, on wet sand
Same P. macroschisma shell flipped over to show the undersurface
A piece of dark driftwood protruding from the sand. Small, unidentified green seaweed hitchhiker. View is landward over beach sand. Rocks in the distance.
Drifters, stuck in the sand
***

April 19, 2022

From above, a view out to sea, down across the cobbles, sand, sufzone, and beyond. Partly cloudy skies and a headland to the north.
Wrack line and big wood up in the cobbles
Closeup on a knot. Several lines tied together in a substantial knot, on wet cobble.
Lost knot
Soccer ball, a little worn, but still inflated, on wet cobbles
Chelsea FC
Bright orange eroded foam fragment on dry cobbles
Float fragment
Top of the upper shell of the green false-jingle, placed on a bed of acorn barnacles.
Pododesmus macrochisma placed on barnacles for a better view
Inside of the upper shell of the green false-jingle, placed on a bed of acorn barnacles.
Same P. macrochisma shell turned over to expose the inside
Three cobble cairns in the foreground, the view southwest over the cobble zone, onto sand, the out to the surf zone and beyond. A few offshore rocks in the distance and mostly cloudy skies.
Cobble cairns
***

April 9, 2022

The view is straight out to sea to a seastack silhouette. Swash zone in the foreground, surf zone, then moody skies above. Sunlight peeking through the top right of the scene.
Haystack Rock
Sunlight plays on the cape in the mid distance. Swash and surf zones in the foreground. Moody skies.
Cape Kiwanda
***

March 22, 2022

View to the north, mostly a headland in the distance and it's reflection in the reflective surface of wet sand in swash zone.
Hug Point in the mirror
Out on a misty headland, just above water level, view to the south where several headlands are shrouded in mist.
Hug Point looking south, into the mist
view north along a lonely sandy beach. Coastal mountains on the middle-left, swash zone on the lower- right. Misty, cloudy skies.
Squinting to make out the headland to the north
***

February 24, 2022

View down the beach along the meeting of the cobble zone and beach sand. Cloudy day and a dark headland in the distance.
Where cobble and sand meet
Moon jelly morning
Moon jelly
***

February 23, 2022

Long stretch of sandy beach with two sea stacks in the distance. Cloudless day with some sun gleam on the wet beach sand.
Beach view to the south
An eroded free left rock scallop valve, outer surface exposed, on wet beach sand.
Crassadoma gigantea, rock scallop, as I found it
An eroded free left rock scallop valve, flipped over to exposed the inner surface, on wet beach sand.
Same shell, flipped over to expose the inside surface
***

February 1, 2022

A solo wad from a shotgun shell, the view is over the beach and out to the surf zone
The wad is ever-present
closeup on the drift line with a 15 cm rule for scale. Spruce needles, bark fragments, other terrestrial plant material, and plastic fragments.
Mostly terrestrial material and plastic fragments
Lost aqua-colored and white braided nylon lines, probably fishing gear.
Lost lines
Maybe a dozen plastic foam sheets encased in a cube-shaped rusted iron frame of about 1 meter x 1 meter. It's washed way up in the cobbles, just below the big wood at the moth of a small stream.
Industrial strength float
Pink cut rose washed up in the cobbles
Cut flowers are morse common than you might think
A mangled trap buoy with a bit of line still attached. The view s over the buoy, down the beach to the surf zone.
Lost float/buoy
Thin red blades of Pyropia nereocystis, on a bull bull kelp stipe. (Washed up on wet sand.)
Bull kelp nori
A drift bull kelp float and blades on wet sand and cobbles
Drift bull kelp
A cluster of about 30-40 Nucella eggs washed up onto the beach
Sea oats (Nucella eggs)
Whale jaw bone (partial). The view is up the beach to the north. Cliffs and forest to the right; surf zone on the left.
Bone from the upper jaw (young humpback)
Empty clear plastic water bottle with a red lid
Too much of this
Just the carapace on wet beach sand
Dungeness carapace
On wet beach sand. View off over the beach to the surf zone. Moody, out of focus skies.
Moon jelly remains
The exposed inside of the shell with a deep purple hinge. This is a closeup on wet sand.
Crassadoma gigantea, rock scallop