Rowan and I went down and spent some time at the beach this morning. The tide was up, but there was still enough room for Rowan to look for shells and climb on the rocks. I spent the time soaking up the sun, watching flies, and taking pictures of kelp.
Weather: Clear skies with freezing temperatures overnight gave way to clear skies with temperatures in the 40s today. It was quite nice to sit out in the sun out of the breeze. There was a light wind form the North.
Birds: There was the usual assortment of duck family species off shore along Lincoln Street Beach. I heard some smaller song birds in the bushes and trees, but never got a good look at them. There was also at least one Song Sparrow in the rocks between the sandy part of the beach and the sidewalk above.
Other Notes: There were quite a few flies gathering on the drying seaweed that had washed ashore. They would fly off if you made any movements close to them, but they would come back shortly once you stopped moving. I took advantage of this to set up my camera in attempt to get some photos and I also watched what they were doing. They did a little hopping thing where they would flair their wings as they were hopping. Every once in awhile one would fly over and, as best I could tell, try to mount (as in copulate) with one of the other ones. There was a very brief tussle and they went back to what they were doing. Sometimes one would fly in from further away and get jumped on by several of the flies that were right there. I’m not sure what was going on. I’m also not sure where they have been waiting out the winter. I did get a couple of pictures, but not very close up, so I’m not sure how well they will serve for identification purposes.