With our backs to the sea

Friday was a sunny day, for a change. We went to our usual spot on Crescent Beach, but in the spirit of change, we turned our back on the water, and explored the weather-beaten logs and weedy banks at the top of the beach. So many colours and textures! So many hidden corners! Here's a sampler:

Dying blackberry leaf

Graffiti on a silvery stump

Old, rotting root wood. Looks like some tortured painting by Van Gogh.

Crane fly. I had never seen one like this, and it wouldn't stand still for even a second. I chased it all over an upturned root of a tree, and then lost it. I think it's a Tiger Crane Fly.

Wild apple or crabapple blossoms

An unidentified plant growing out of dried eelgrass on sand

Lichens

I went around poking the camera into holes in stumps to see what the flash turned up. This was a spider's lair; the entrance was almost two inches across. I couldn't see a spider.

Laurie says this is a red-spined long-tailed salamander. I have my doubts. In a puddle caught by two adjacent logs.

Maple flowers. So tiny, so red!

Just a split stone, on a rotting log. The outside of the stone was nondescript; just a smooth greyish stone.

This was another hole in a stump. We could see the white slime mold, but only discovered the large cup mushroom when we looked at the photo at home.

Split stump. I like the texture, and the caterpillar-y incurled edges of green bark. The black circles are some kind of mold or lichen.

Spirea.

A tiny plant, blowing in the wind. I haven't identified it yet.

Another heart for Clytie.

And we were so engrossed in our pokings into cracks that we ignored the cries of a pair of eagles circling overhead. A man in the lane later told us that there's a web-cam over their nest. I looked for it on the web, and may have found it, at Hancock Wildlife. I think it's Delta #2. We'll look for it in the trees next time we visit.