The upside of insomnia

I couldn't sleep last night. I finally dropped off around 3:00 and sat up wide awake at 5. Since I'm usually not up at that hour, I decided to take advantage and see how the other half lives. Dan was up too and the kids spent the night at my mom's, so we were free to head down to the peninsula and take a morning walk.

We got there in time to catch the sunrise, and a last glimpse of the crescent moon.

Not a fabulous shot I know, but it was neat to see this heron fly across the beautifully lit sky.

We headed over to Sidewalk Trail. This trail skirts a long boggy pond and we figured we might be lucky enough to see some morning wildlife.

No such luck on any big birds or animals, but there was a ton of cool stuff to see.

There were lots of these red and white mushrooms... doesn't the red part this one kind of look like the diagram of a uterus? (Minus a fallopian tube, I guess. I know. I'm weird.) It rained last night and was still really wet on the trail. Some of the water was so even it reminded me of frost.
Dragonflies (or damselflies? I don't know the difference.) were all over the place...
...including this poor guy who was caught in a spider's web. I guess spiders have to eat too, but doesn't it look like the dragonfly is looking right at you, hoping for help? And a few more random shots:

Monarch butterfly caterpillar
Red-winged Blackbird
cute little baby frog
And I *think* this is a Flicker.

We were there for almost 3 hours and I took about 200 pics so be prepared to see more of this in the next few days!