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Eagles, Agates, Sand Movement and Critters on Oregon Coast Beach This Week

Bald eagle at Seaside this week (photo Tiffany Boothe, Seaside Aquarium)

(Oregon Coast) - It's been another eventful week on Oregon’s coast - from Seaside to Newport - with the weather and the waves causing a variety of changes on the beaches, as well as all sorts of stuff washing up or being exposed. A little bit of everything seems to be crashing in with the waves. And that didn't really include the kitchen sink, a desk was spotted on the beaches as well.

With the wind blowing directly out of the west on Wednesday, the Seaside Aquarium’s Tiffany Boothe headed for the beach about 9 a.m., and caught sight of a bundle of odd and interesting beach sundries: five bald eagles, a bunch of anemones clinging to a rope, and a chunk of a whale.

Close up of anenome on a rope (photo Boothe)

She and aquarium staff went out with the purpose of looking for logs that had recently washed in with gooseneck barnacles attached. They didn’t find any of those, but found some other wacky tidbits.

“At first we thought the trip might be a bust, but then we ran into this unidentifiable creature: tissue left over from a whale, species unknown,” Boothe said. “It was some sort of cetacean – the insides of a whale, one that had been dead. There were no bones, just tissue.”

Boothe said it’s not uncommon to find chunks of dead whales on Oregon beaches, although more often than not they include bones with the rather disgusting packages.

Chunk of whale flesh on a Seaside beach (photo Boothe)

The chunk of whale tissue was 15 feet long and about five feet wide – in its current state of being somewhat bunched up. Boothe and aquarium staff did not try to unroll it to examine it or see how long it really was. “There was no way we were going to touch that,” she said. “It was pretty gross.”

In the realm of the living, Boothe and the crew spotted not just one bald eagle, but five. “One had a yummy prize captured in his talons,” Boothe said. “Usually we just see one. It’s rare to see five. We were just lucky, I guess. There weren’t any special conditions. It’s funny, they came out scavenging and feeding, and we were out there doing the same.”

Plumose anenome (photo Boothe)

Boothe said she and the crew just happened to be at the right place at the right time.

“We also came across a large section of rope which had about 20 plumose anemones attached to it - really a cool find for us aquarium geeks,” Boothe said.

The chunk of rope had probably sunk to the bottom of the ocean, falling into a bed of plumose, Boothe said. It doesn’t take long for an object to acquire such living creatures in the right conditions.

“Especially with the plumose, it can take a couple of minutes to a couple hours,” Boothe said.

One bald eagle had a morsel in its talons (photo Boothe)

The rope appeared to be from a crab pot. They also found a few crab buoys that had washed up with recent storm waves, as well as several groups of sea nettles – a form of jellyfish.

Boothe said sea foam was all over the place, a sure sign of recent wave activity. But that wasn’t the only oddball surprise that day.

“There was so much foam all over the place it made it look like it had been snowing,” Boothe said. “But we also found a desk on the beach. Who knows how it got there.”

She said usually this is the result of someone dumping garbage on the beach, not furniture falling off a ship somewhere out at sea.

Agate Beach, Newport

On the central coast, Newport, Oregon beach expert Guy DiTorrice (Oregon Fossil Guy) said the last week has been a mixed bag of stuff for beachcombers, with a lot of sand moving around in a good and bad way.

“On the good side: some upper-tidal rock piles are getting turned and rotated, exposing stuff underneath we haven't seen in a while,” DiTorrice said. “Bad: some of the rock and gravel bars that have been exposed these past weeks are getting covered back up again.”

Agates are still a hot item during these topsy-turvy days of winter and high surf in the Newport area.

“Collecting for agates, jaspers and fossils is still very good,” DiTorrice said. “Lots of the ‘Newport Blues’ - near-clear and opaque agates with a strong dark blue look to them - are showing up in good numbers and size on beaches south of the bridge. Theil Creek, north of Lost Creek State Park, and the areas south of the park are still producing well enough to have ‘wholesale collectors’ making this area a regular stop during most daylight hours. Folks need to remember that collecting ‘souvenirs’ is one thing on the beach. Commercial collecting for selling agates, jaspers and fossils needs a State Parks permit.”

Guy DiTorrice in fossil hunting mode

Like the north coast, DiTorrice said commercial crab floats are being spotted with regularity on the beaches around Newport. One apparently came from a boat skippered by a University of Oregon Ducks fan.

“I saw one trekker this past week recover a tangled bunch of marine rope with five different colored crab floats attached,” DiTorrice said. “Snagged myself a double near South Beach State Park that had to have come from a boat or skipper who’s an Oregon Duck - one float was bright yellow, the other dark green.”

For those venturing out to the Oregon coast to catch some beachcombing surprises of your own, there have been more high surf events since Wednesday, so chances are good you’ll find some goodies on your own.

DiTorrice had some advice for those beachside adventurers.

“Low tides are going to be mid to late afternoon through the weekend,” DiTorrice said. “Just remember that offshore storms and changing winds will bring high surf to shore no matter what the tide prediction tables tell you.”

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