While at my rock this morning, there was something makings noise that reminded me of a laughing monkey! When I got home, I googled, bird that sounds like monkey, and found out that the Pilated Woodpecker makes the noise that I heard. Maybe that's who is responsible for these holes?  I did spot a downy woodpecker with the binoculars....   

I call these lichens, the golf tee lichens...  This was the only clump of them that I saw all morning. 

A nice fungus growing on a dead birch tree.  When I was little, my sister and I would use our fingernails to etch designs into the underside of this species. Hence the name "Artist's Conk". (Learned the name in my mushroom workshop a couple of weeks ago!)