Dunes Cleanup

 Last Thursday, Gail and I participated in a dunes cleanup south of Florence.  Similar to last year, this was another dune area occupied by threatened Snowy Plovers.  The Pacific Coast population has declined so much that these little shorebirds have to have human intervention to survive.  Their numbers are starting to come back, from an Oregon total of 76 in 2003, to 483 in the most recent count.  Snowy Plovers need open dunes without thick European beach grass in order to have successful nests.  Large areas of dunes in Oregon are in the process of having the beach grass removed using heavy equipment, burning, and spraying to remove this grass with very deep roots.  The nests are just small scrapes in sand or gravel which makes them vulnerable to ravens, gulls, dogs, hawks, human traffic, etc.  The main nesting areas are marked, and off limits to people and dogs.  The marine debris cleanup was organized by Jesse Jones, program manager of Coast Watch, which is part of Oregon Shores.  Much of the debris we collected is going to make art for WashedAshore in Bandon under direction of Elizabeth Roberts, who was with us.

After being driven several miles down the beach from Waxmyrtle Campground, we scoured a dunes area near the outlet of Tahkenitch Creek.  We saw Snowy Plovers, Sanderlings, and Bald Eagles  along the way.

It was rainy and windy the whole time.  Here we are breaking for lunch.  Gail is hunkered down in blue raincoat next to the truck.

Some of our haul, bagged and tied.

A glass float that could be from Japan that our State Parks biology technician/driver found.  These are very rare these days as plastic has replaced glass.

Driving down the beach.

We stopped to pick up what we thought was a large styrofoam float.  It turned out to be wood of some sort.  Mysterious!

We feared stooping to pick up mostly small bits of plastic in the rain for several hours was going to be miserable.  However, it turned out to be a fun way to spend a birthday and made coming home, being greeted by Daisy, lighting a fire, and munching goodies extra fun.