A Day at the Shore

I had my first beach outing of the season with my family (husband, daughter, dog) the other day. While my husband and I don't usually go in the water, we do love the shore. I took many pictures, but the one above is my favorite. That critter in the upper right hand corner, the one that looks like a bird, is a carpenter bee. I had tried to capture a picture of the bees that were swarming around a wooden gazebo, but couldn't get a shot. When I got home and looked at my phone I realized one of the bees had photo-bombed me.

We saw the gazebo from a distance and thought it would be a nice place to enjoy the sights.

Although the bees were swarming and seemed to be diving at us, only a couple are visible on the left side of the gazebo photo (above)

Here's a really short video I shot that shows some bees swarming, but nothing beats the photo-bombing bee in my top picture.

I stayed away from the gazebo because I didn't want to get stung. Those bees were mighty big. I wondered how much a bite from one of these could hurt. It seems these are carpenter bees. While they are large and do have impressive mandibles (because they burrow in wood, and need to chew it out) they are not aggressive and their sting might be less painful than a bumble bee's sting, or a wasp's. They can however, sting multiple times because their stinger is not barbed. Females sting. Males do not.

Barbed stingers remain in a wound and cannot be pulled out by the bee. Here's picture from Wikimedia Commons that shows clearly how this bee appears:

Eastern Carpenter Bee (Xylocopa Virginica), the only species of carpenter bee in my area.

Robert Webster / xpda.com / CC-BY-SA-4.0

Please note that in the picture at the top of my blog you can actually see the bee's face (@whatisnew used to love catching the insect's face), as shown in the Wikimedia picture. In the picture from Wikimedia, the antennae are folded down, but in my picture they are raised. A bee at rest may fold down its antennae. Otherwise they will be raised. These are one of the bee's most important sensory organs. They use these to 'hear', see, and smell.

Here is a closer shot of the floating pier, shown in the top picture. You can see the different boats that are for rent.

Here is the ramp leading to the boat rental's floating pier. I was standing on the stationary pier when I shot this.

Here I am, taking a picture I believe of my husband. My daughter snapped this photo. We hadn't planned to go to the beach that day, but the weather was so beautiful, it seemed a pity to waste the sunshine. So, we hopped in the car and drove the couple of miles to the beach. We live close enough to hop over to the beach when we want, and far enough to avoid flooding from the bay. That's why we chose this neighborhood when we moved back in 2023.

This is a North Shore beach, which means it has higher elevations than South Shore beaches. In the future, it is predicted many areas in the South Shore will be swallowed up by the sea. That is not the case on the North Shore.

You can see in the picture below that, though we are on the beach, we are also in close proximity to trees. The area around the shore is quite hilly in some places. That's my daughter's dog in the foreground. The beach across the bay has few people on it, although there are boats (mostly kayaks) in the water further out.

It looks like a bee photo-bombed this shot also, although you can barely see it in the top right corner. I did notice that the bees had begun to take an interest in the wood rails of the pier. Whoever manages the beach should put an end to that invasion because no one will walk on the pier with those dive-bombing carpenter bees.

On our way to the viewing area/pier visible in my former pictures, we had to cross a marshy area that separated the shore from the bay. As I looked down from the passageway I saw water, and a particular species of grass. Here's one of the shots I got of that grass.

Here's another shot that shows how far into the bay this grassy, marshy area extends.

I looked up pictures of marsh grass in my area and this seems to be saltmeadow cordgrass. It might be another species of shore grass, but whichever it is this grass serves an important function.

According to the website South Shore Blueway:

Saltmeadow cordgrass is primarily used for shoreline protection and marsh restoration. This plant is great at dissipating wave energy along low shorelines and marsh areas.
utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=index&utm_content=originalhat

The beach we visited is a little off the beaten path. It is less crowded than the more accessible area. That's why we like it. Very quiet. Here's a picture that shows the larger beach, which is east of where we were sitting.

There is a lovely promenade that invites a leisurely stroll. This promenade will take you to the larger beach or to one of the several fishing piers that dot the bay area.

Everything about the beach is inviting. Among the invitations is one that asks people to deposit their used fishing lines in a recycle bin.

There is a bike rack, for people who want to use a little people power instead of fossil fuel to get to the beach. Many people do use their bikes.

Finally, on our way out we noticed a sign. My husband and I stopped to read it. The sign was a dedication to a local resident who had died in Vietnam. The pier on which we had been enjoying ourselves that afternoon was named after Sgt. James A. Harrington, Jr. Interesting coincidence. My husband was in front-line combat in Vietnam, at the very same time. One of my husband's boyhood friends, Joe Strippoli, was killed in Vietnam just 11 days before Sgt. Harrington, on March 17, 1968. There is a Strippoli Square in my husband's childhood neighborhood, named after the fallen hero.

I'm glad we saw that sign. We gave a thought, in that moment to Joe Strippoli, Sgt. Harrington and all the other soldiers who did not return from Vietnam. We thought about them and realized how very fortunate we were.

I'll leave off with a picture of the beautiful bay. No matter how many buildings we construct, how many parks we design, nothing we humans do can top the wonders of nature.

Thank you for reading my blog.

Health and peace to all. Hive on!