They're a bit like large, flattened pill bugs. Lots of legs.
Later: I saw a sow bug in a book... looked a lot like these guys, though the book's was under .5 inches and I'd say mine are more like an inch. And then another source gives the common name as sowbug, one word, but it's still not it, because it also said like half an inch.
I found another one like this all wet and sand all over the wings at the water's edge. Picked up on something and placed on a tree washed up nearby to watch the sand dry and fall off.
Nope.
It walked around for a few minutes with the wings hanging heavily, and not having brain enough to know that things are temporary under these circumstances, it grew exasperated and it pulled its wings off.
Now you know what not to do. Wet sand will lead to tragedy. I think you have to take it and toss it in the water instead and fish it back off the surface with a stick.
As for exasperation, I believe I've read that they pull their wings off after they go back down the hole because they're just in the way. That might be implemented as simply as "Are your wings troubling you? Pull them off!" where they usually only trouble you at the right time. A state machine.
The fact that I got this picture at all is amazing. They're all active and chittering and keeping branches in the way. Sort of brownish, in a golden way. Not streaked. Though since they won't really let you see them (for something that wants to come over and chitter at you), it's hard to say anything with certainty.
Here's a little fish.
what an impressive ovipositor
Strange how striking the grassy stuff on the left is in the image. Sometimes a camera gives you something that wasn't really there.
[hmm. The smaller and more compressed this image gets, the more you have to take my word for it regarding "striking".]
examining a crevice.
This reminded me strongly of one of the winged creatures here that I saw just recently...
I'm disappointed because I thought I successfully got it in focus. Enjoying a beach pea leaf, I think.
[I later learn that there's a category called Leaf Bug that's filled with things that look something like this. Calligrapha, iirc. I'll look into it at some point probably.]
If it looks like an ant and it has wings, I think "termite" because I am no entomologist.
Beached by the waves. When a wave comes up, there isn't enough water to swim down in. Cupped in my hands, wriggled very actively as I walked it down a bit to deeper water.
The shape of the back suggests it's a true bug of some sort. It wanted to get away badly, so I was lucky to get even this good of an image.
