Sunken Meadow Beach in a New Year

We were wondering how the beach at Sunken Meadow State Park, N.Y, fared after the huge October storm, Sandy.

New Years Day was a time out and we went for a rather chilly walk.  The beach looking east.

 Looking west

 The beach looked pristine and the water looked really cold and choppy, at an outside temperature of 40 degrees F.

 The tide line was free of un-natural debris. There were a lot of tiny,  deeply purple colored lady slipper shells.

A very orange jingle shell, and a piece of popper sea weed.

 The Plover were scurrying about,

 trying to find food.  Off in the distance were quite a few more, so I guess there was plenty for them to feast upon.  Plover never like to get their feet wet and dart at the edge of the waves.

 Baby Lady Slippers attached to a clam shell.

An egg casing from a Whelk Snail.

 The winds made sort of moguls out of dune grass clumps.

 We thought that we might find some of the "Wagon Wheel" Plastic shapes, and there were a few higher up on the beach. 

 The storms pushed the sand up against the board walk,

 but a few of these escaped being buried by the fall storm.

I noticed that the pines were looking sort of "burned" on their edges.   Wondered if the winds had done that.

 Even on the First of January, plants can surprise you.  Here is a Dusty Miller sort of planting that was doing well in spite of the cold.

 These were planted as ornamentals along the entry to the park.

 Span Dragons were also stubbornly blooming along side the Dusty Millers.

 In the distance was a huge pile of fallen trees from Sandy.  I was surprised that more storm debris wasn't in the parking lot, because there are so many, many large downed trees on the North Shore.

 The gulls were sitting in the parking lot.

 A photo of the "Wagon Wheel Pasta" shapes that I blogged about was included in a publication concerned with Long Island Sound Health.

 In their Article they reported that 33 million of these wheels were released into the Long Island sound in a waste treatment plant  overflow last march.

Pretty unbelievable, but we found some as far out on a beach in Orient Point last September.  Can there be some in France or Morocco?

These are the shells that I collected today: Oyster, Quahog, clam, Whelk and Razor or Jackknife Clam.

This is a small water color painting that I did a few years ago of a Whelk with Barnacles.  Shells make interesting subjects, and when you live on an island, they are plentiful.  Happy New Year to all.