Kept running in circles aimlessly :(
Could this be a badger spoil heap? Right on a river bank? Badgers prefer well-drained sites for setts, on elevated ground, to avoid flooding of the sett. Hence the riverbank location is a bit unlikely- but not impossible, especially if they have been disturbed by recent operations which is suggested at this site given the installation of a new wire and post fencing system. Could this potentially be water vole? The ground was not stable enough for me to get a better look.
On Helianthus sp. blossom. Sage steppe habitat. Voucher specimen placed in Orma J. Smith Museum of Natural History (as part of the Deer Flat NWR Insect Biodiversity Survey) at The College of Idaho, Caldwell, ID.
in a sample of this lichen: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/195530303
MBL Director requested that we try to locate specimens. I purchased the Pennak/Zinn paper describing the group which identified Nobska Beach as a known location from June/July 1939 and a source for the cotypes.
On Sep 20, Bill Grossman made a series of samples at Nobska Beach. He made a series of samples from high to low water at four locations running west to east more or less evenly spaced along the beach. At each location he took three to five samples from the high water mark down by 2-2.5 meter increments. Based on the paper's details he took a vertical shovelful of sand and sampled between 12-15 cm from the surface.
The resultant 16 or so jars were examined by MBLs Carsten Wolff. He found two specimens in the lowest (wettest) sample of the middle two sampling locations. He will look for additional specimens in the samples.
There were dozens of these on a wall. Presumably bagworms?