Thursday, November 20, 2008

Sculpture Park





The pocket beach at the sculpture park was looking great, particularly once the sun came out ( just as we were leaving). A mother seal had dropped off her pup on the only backshore in the several miles between the mouth of the Duwamish and Magnolia Bluff (it was probably once a continuous beach, broken only at the head of Smith Cove), and the beach had been cordoned off so he could lounge in the wrack undisturbed. I'm a big advocate of urban beaches, but this is an ecological function that I hadn't considered!

The tide was too high to see much of the lower beach, let alone the low tide "habitat bench" that stretches along this shore in front of both the seawall and the pocket beach. The researchers monitoring the beach report that some gravel is lost offshore as a result of being thrown by kids. Maybe we should invite them (the kids, not the researchers) all back at a really low tide every few years to retrieve it! If it weren't for the low-tide sill, maybe it would come back on its own.

Previous Post: Sculpture Park (January 2007)
And more pictures at hshipman, too.

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