Nags Head and other animals

K and I just got back from Nags Head, NC, where we spent the weekend with her family. I'll write a report soon, when I'm not too travel-weary to process. But it was a fine weekend for critter-watching, so I'll post my observations:

• At the Great Dismal Swamp Canal Welcome Center, Kendra nearly stepped on a southern leopard frog, which had the good sense to hop out of the way. The little fellow held still for two photos before disappearing into the canal.
  
• I was bitten by a horsefly at the GDSCWC. I'd forgotten about @#$% horseflies. Huge dragonflies stitched the air overhead.
  
• The sand near our beach house was riddled with holes, one to six inches wide. They were home to crabs of various sizes, which carefully sidled out from their holes and skittered toward the surf to eat. They were canny little bastards; however patiently and unmovingly I stood by the holes, I was never able to catch one on-camera—during the day. At night, I went out with a flashlight and found them to be imperturbable; I was able to get right up next to them, and even touch them, without any evidence of alarm.
  
• I found a dead ray on the beach that night: a leathery diamond three feet across, with a head like the back of a snow shovel. It looked more like a prop for an alien invasion movie than an animal.
  
• I spotted a pair of dolphins swimming a hundred yards offshore, their dorsal fins slipping into the air every fifteen seconds or so as they traveled southward. Half an hour later, I saw another three or four, headed in the same direction. Everyone I pointed them out to smiled and pointed and ran to tell their friends.
  
• The surf was dense with hard little blobs of jelly, millions of them; it was like wading through bubble tea. I believe they were eggs or embryos, though I don't know of what; they looked like big clear jellybeans, with a small purple pinhead embedded in one end, from which a threadlike blue vein trailed away into nothing.
  
• Some kind of phosphorescent microorganisms lived in the wet sand at night, and glowed in response to pressure; my footprints triggered flashes of eery yellow-green light. They were densest around dead things, so a firm poke at a small dead jellyfish resulted in tiny lines and dots and fields of light on its underside, like a city seen from space.
  
• Black pelicans flapped along close to the water during the day, alone or in triplets or in long lines. Other birds, possibly terns, flew higher, then folded their wings to plummet with a splash into the water when they saw their dinners. The gulls were huge.