It’s that time of year, the week before Christmas … a white Christmas:
(Click (sometimes twice) on any image to expand it full size. Use your browser “back” button to return to this blog.)
(click on the expand symbol in bottom right to see the video full screen)
And, of course, during a warmish spell a few days ago, we saw the famous “Partridge in the Birch Tree”.
and another Ruffed Grouse posing in all of its winter fluffiness.
We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!
Tom & Tinsley
After a day of snow …
… which grounded all flying from our community heliport and provided a soft backdrop to winter goldenrods …
… we enjoyed a couple days of sharp cold clear arctic air.
The bright sunshine transformed our previously “snowy” images into postcards.
Old Still River Road:
Highway 607 to Meshaw Falls …
Along Dry Pine Bay towards Meshaw Falls …
Looking upstream from the Falls ..
Downstream, westerly …
Nice little Christmas decoration on the nameplate…
Mailbox wearing its snowy hat …
We made other pictures but we’ll save them for the next posting!
In preparation for that event, check out the Sundogs at this very useful site.
We enjoyed a few days of clear cold weather, bringing out the brighter side of December.
Oft-photographed Twin Rivers in the late afternoon …
Frost flowers along Hwy 529 …
Little stream … a good spot for some video …. forthcoming at a later date!
Early morning frost flowers before the crystals sublime, losing their sharpness…
Little stream on Hwy 522 near Grundy Lake PP… another good spot for some video ….
Snowmobile bridge over stream exiting Grundy Lake PP on Hwy 522.
Looking upstream at Meshaw Falls with a light mist of ice crystals rising off of the French River…
Looking downstream, with a much heavier mist ….
It is always very pleasant to see the sun on a cold winter’s day!
Something different: Spinning Ice Disks
We made more videos of nature’s fury and her elegance. Here is an example of her fury:
And the still:
Here is a still where you might imagine the video …
This one illustrates the perils of making videos with a cell phone in the car:
Although I will continue to “film” more videos I won’t be posting them here until I get some software to process them. You might imagine what some of the following stills would look like in motion.
Here are some slide marks and footprints left by a river otter as seen from Hwy 529:
Reed waving in the breeze in light snow …
Delicate filigree of ice on Wright’s rock …
Jack Frost sculpturing the shoreline of Byng Inlet …
Ditch flowing near Bayfield Inlet …
Same ditch as above. It is always interesting to photograph as the water level changes a lot from week to week.
Classic fallen fence post and page wire on Old Still River Road…
Further along Still River Road…
Rock accumulating snow on Community Road, Britt…
Ah! Some sun poking through the drab snowclouds…
Back to snowy weather on Hwy 529 ..
This is the same Purple Pitcher Plant seed pod that I have been photographing since last summer. Soon it will disappear under the snow…
Isn’t it amazing to enjoy all of the above on our Pale Blue Dot!
I am starting to play with the video buttons on my camera to try to capture the other dimensions of winter weather. I shot these on the FZ1000, edited them (minimally) in Lightroom 5.6,and trimmed them in QuickTime Player 10.3. One of these days, if I continue to enjoy the challenge of shooting some video I’ll invest in some better editing software —- and the computer to go with it!!
Here are a couple of scenes from the snowstorm we had yesterday:
First a still image …
And now a video clip:
and
Now the video clip
What do you think?
We were busy prepping for winter and didn’t make many pictures. The light was … well … flat. Here are a few pix made during the last week of November:
A nice sunrise through the trees on the east side of the Still River.
The leaves have all fallen from the ivy plant framing this window in the former Little Britt Inn….
Periodic freezes and melts are leaving little ice floes in local ponds…
Late afternoon at Big Lake …
Sparkling sunshine on Hwy 522 while we were on our way to North Bay …
Sally has been busy out west. Looks like they had a good snowfall.
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