A walk on the beach

I love being one of the first people along the beach after a day of rain. The sand was pristine, unmarked except for the spatter patterns left by the raindrops, and the scattered signs of wild things that got there before me -- a trail of rabbit footprints, the barely-there scratchings of some bird among the dune vegetation, the sweeping circular traces of a windblown grass stem. Fog still lingered first thing this morning, rendering the sea invisible, though the surge of the tide against the jetty carried clearly, as did the eerie whistles of the courting Black Scoters and the faraway ping of the Cape May canal's fog horn.

 The battered, molted shell of a horseshoe crab. In a few months, the live ones will be spawning on our beaches again.

 I can't imagine how frustrating it must be to be a mole tunneling in the sand! Yet, judging by the number of trails I found, they must do quite well here.

 The runoff from yesterday's rain left traces like those of the braided rivers that flow out of glaciers.

 The storm left piles of these little sea plants scattered on the beach.

 Another tiny creature, left stranded by the tide. 

 A string of whelk eggs, which appear to have hatched successfully.

The Cape May Light, nearly invisible in the fog.