Clouds spread high and even, exposed quilt-batting pinned above the landscape.

Great Blue Heron perches afront a high cliff, dark against tawny, bare earth.
Suddenly, silently, he extends broad wings. Legs momentarily dangle long before he points his toes straight behind and glides north along the shoreline.

Hummingbirds cavort, pausing occasionally in the bushes below our deck. One zooms into my personal space, then speeds away, so quick I register its presence only when it’s gone.

Two piles of sea lions lie strewn on behemoth, exposed rocks in the frothy tide far below, where yesterday we found wide swaths of sea anemones packed together like dinner rolls, and a Dungeness crab picking its way through submerged, holly-green sea plants.

The air is calm and balmy, the sound of waves steady.

Assorted seabirds pass overhead, wings beating duck-like.
An osprey circles once, twice, a third time. Its feet drop slightly as it releases a sizable white poo that disappears as soon as I spot it.

Blue clouds on the horizon hold my gaze—color of blue sky, but fluffy like whipped frosting. 

A caw-caw rides air from the beach to my ears. Sea lions are on the move.
They wiggle their way toward the surf, descending the sloping rock like otters with no legs, bodies gallumping in a wavelike motion, ungraceful.
A raggedy row of them moves like an uncomfortable caterpillar. A dozen submerge and swim away; the “caterpillar” comes to an awkward halt, twitching a few times at the tail end, then settling, as if an invisible being has hit snooze. Nine more minutes of sleep. 

A long, low island of rocks emerges, left of the tall sea-cliff island that is nearly always visible.
A wave crashes, snapping my attention back to shore and sleeping sea lions. One twitches its hind flipper like a cat’s tail.

A flash of blue catches my eye. Stellar Jay lands on the porch railing, hops down, picks up the beef jerky that fell yesterday when we fed seagulls. Effortlessly, she ascends again to the railing. She pins the jerky against it, reaching between her toes to rip pieces off, her scruffy morning hairdo dark against the sky. Before I have drunk my fill of her beauty, she hops away. Holding the last bite of jerky, she springs grasshopper-like in short bounds along the railing until she disappears beyond weathered shingles.

I think about binoculars, so I can see what kind of birds cluster on the rocks far from shore. But fog has moved in, curtain call on this beach morning.