This afternoon a friend forwarded the following KNBC headline to me: “Dozens of dead and dying shorebirds birds have turned up around the mouth of the Santa Ana River over the past week.” Great. Toxic surf. No one told me! We had surfed Bolsa Chica Saturday morning. I did spot one dead gull near lifeguard station 18. Someone had marked the carcass with a small cross constructed from bits of litter. I didn’t think much of it at the time but I wonder now if it was meant as a warning.

Sunday I spent a short time at Huntington Beach State Park near the mouth of the Santa Ana river a few miles south of Bolsa Chica. It was mid-afternoon and a stiff onshore breeze had all but blown out the surf. Still, it was a beautiful day and I was struck by how few people were around. There were a trickle of walkers, runners, and skaters on the beach path, but, apart from three surfers there was no one actually in the water and very few people actually on the beach. Maybe they knew something I didn’t.