It's all here

Out to the River early on a Sunday morning, Labor Day weekend, the world of humans is sleeping in. By the river I am greeted by a tent with snoozing occupant. I pass on by. The cool green water beckons, the deeper narrow channel just off the intermittent stream sand delta. I step in and open to the real world. Across the river, large sand flats are barely submerged.. water depth 2 inches or less and a thin coat of flocculent algae is blooming under the warm, nutrient-rich water. Corixid water boatmen are as thick as fleas scooting underwater and feeding on the rich algae. Minnows too, probably enjoying the algae and the corixids. A few killdeer with their white vests and black necklines watch me and then fly, zooming low over water and sand, crying as they go.
There is everywhere up the river life and and things happening. On the northeastern sandy jeep road I come across the largest red-eared slider turtle I've seen this year. Their track has flattened the sand with the dragging of the plastron. Looked like it was temporarily blocked on its return to the river by a steep sandy bank. I pick it up and give a small toss up on top of the levee under some cottonwoods.
I watch a Bembex sand wasp busy excavating like a dog digging sand, flying out behind it in sand that was too loose. After 3-4 attempts with no success and just moving sand around the little wasp flew off in search of a firmer sand bank. Out in the water a beaver cut stick floats past my ankle and I turn in time to see a small black snout just barely out of the water on the other side. It looks like a largish snake that does not see me. It begins to cross the main current towards me and I move towards it until it sees me and heads upstream. But the current is too strong and I come up to the 2 foot long snake swimming energetically under water. I lift it quickly with my stick and toss it a couple feet out of the water and glimpse the yellow brown belly and unmarked olive green brown back before it falls back to the water and swims swiftly away. There is so much here. numerous viceroys on the flowers along the sandy levee road, golden rod, white boneset, one pink Pluchea. I see one damaged viceroy, the front leading apex of its left wing has been pecked away, perhaps by the near miss of a passing bird. Its back left wing also is missing a section. I wonder how it can fly if its aerodynamics are so altered. I've seen quite a few damaged viceroys these few weeks and it makes me wonder if viceroys may be suffering because monarch numbers are down and the mimicry of a poisonous or distasteful model may not be providing viceroys the normal protection. I wonder how general a phenomenon this might be.. the linking of the success and problems of mimics with their model.
It is remarkable that so much is here.. by a busy western/ southern town/city of 119,000. So much wildlife leading wild lives undeterred by 85,000 fans who have come to town to cheer for the first football game of the year. I can't remember having ever seen so many frogs as there have been all along the shallow bank of the river. They hop away in a panic as I walk along the sand and mud silty edge of the river bar close by the bank.