Sea gull terrorist . . .

 Gull slamming into the ocean . . .

 and grabbing a crab . . .

He did 'share' a leg of the poor creature with his tag-a-long friend. I'm vegan so the idea of anything eating a crab doesn't appeal to me. I choose not to intervene in nature 99% of the time but I have to admit this was hard to watch . . .

Sonoma coast get slammed by stormy weather . . .

Traveling anywhere in Sonoma County was risky during and after the storm so we stayed coast side. With the reports of 20' waves I couldn't stay cooped up in the house.

All of these photographs were taken at Duncan's Landing. Shooting here you and your camera can get drenched with one big wave.

I stood in the fierce wind and driving rain to get these shots.

Water runoff from the hills create new waterfalls everywhere along the coast. 

Please be mindful of the slick wet roads. Watch for falling limbs, downed trees and flooded roads. 

Living (and dying) in Bodega Bay . . .

California sea lion

Octopus

Gooseneck barnacles

Norma, beach angel

Black-crowned night heron

Migrating American White Pelicans

Great blue heron

Our Beautiful Bodega Bay . . .

Kick butt kite-boarder . . .

This guy was so much fun to watch! He went all-out - flying down the beach faster than I could shoot! He was obviously having a blast as evidenced by his hootin' and hollerin' . . . I should've shot a video but I got so caught-up in watching him I was just enjoying the moment and not thinking about much else. . .
 

Great informational messages about alternatives to plastic and rethinking plastic waste . . .

 

 

No More Plastic!

 

 

Beach trash ~

Beach trash ~ cheap plastic toy & bait container . . .

The Nurdle hurdle . . .

Plastic 'Nurdles' ~ photo credit: onemoregeneration.org

What's a Nurdle?

by Charles Moore, Founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, onboard the Esperanza

Plastic is now everywhere. When locating plastics anywhere in the environment, scientists have little difficulty fulfilling the age-old saying, "Seek, and ye shall find."

But where do plastics come from? Most plastics are made from the natural gas portion of our petroleum resources. The gasses, like ethylene, are purified and turned into plastic by the use of polymer catalysts, which link ethylene molecules together to make polyethylene. Polyethylene plastics make water bottles, clothing fabric, and Tupperware as well as thousands of other products. So how does the polymer get to the processor who makes the goods for the consumer. The answer is “nurdles.” Over 250 billion pounds of nurdles are shipped around the world to plastic processing factories every year. Nurdles are plastic resin pellets that represent the most economical way to ship large quantities of a solid material, that is, in a pelletized form.

The pellets come in rail tank cars, and at 20-25,000 per pound, there are about a billion of them in each tanker. So many have escaped over the last half century during the transfer from rail car to factory by vacuum hoses, washing during rainstorms from rail sidings to the sea, that nurdles now represent about 10% of the litter counted on beaches worldwide.

In surface trawls for plastic particles aboard the Greenpeace vessel Esperanza, nurdles have been found in every trawl. The plastic industry itself is the biggest single source of plastic particles in the environment.

 More beach trash ~

Kite boarder at sunset . . .

Beach Loving Companions . . .

We met 'Rio' on our Sunday beach walk. 'Rio', a 14 month-old Newfoundland loves the water ~ a perfect beach companion. His guardians adopted 'Rio' as a weeks-old puppy after the loss of their beloved Retriever they'd had for many years. 'Rio's' guardian tells me that 'Rio' dives to the bottom of their swimming pool to retrieve objects. Newfoundland's, 'Newfies' are known to be expert swimmers using their front paws not unlike humans do when 'pulling' water. 

It will be fun to see 'Rio' on the beach again. I've made so many canine friends here . . . 

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Heading into the parking lot we were greeted by this alert face. This handsome guy was quite the 'ham'. As I was photographing him he seemed to pose this way and that, clearly enjoying the attention. 

heyyyy . . .  don't . . . .

don't EVEN try and stick your head out here . . .

a bit of admonishment has his trailer companion snicker . . .