We saw lots of variety at the end of January, including these scenes …
Skerryvore Community Road, shadows, tracks and patterns ..
Ice laden trees on Hwy 529 …
Ice encapsulated twigs …
Including birch catkins …
Ruffed grouse is not happy with its food being in a freezer…
sparkles in the ice ….
Black labrador assumes the position whilst guarding the car …
Snow at Secord Rapids …
Snow on Burwash Road ….
Time for a new month. No doubt that February will bring some more winter scenes.
We looked at the effects of the ice storms through the FZ 1000 and the GH4 with the Leica 100-400 mm lens in the neighbourhood of Britt and up at Meshaw Falls on the French River. Some examples:
Still River from Legion Lane.
Mouth of Still River with Byng Inlet in background…
Textures …. ( Click on some of these close-ups to see the beauty of ice sculpturing. Use your back button in your browser to return to the blog.)
Byng Inlet
“Weeping” White Pine …
Shadows …
Birch under ice …
Highway 507 icy White Pine …
Peek-a-boo Sun …
Upstream Meshaw Falls …
Downstream …
Ice prison …
Goldenrod in ice against snow …
More textures ….
A hibernaculum for some sort of insect, made out of a rolled alder leaf….
A pair of Hooded Mergansers diving for minnows at the base of Meshaw Falls …
The ice lasted a few days so we had lots of opportunity to examine its effects.
These pictures were made using the long telephoto lens, usually from less that 10 m away, so you can see the detail in the little sculptures, especially if you enlarge them (by clicking on the image at least once). The resulting textures are interesting.
January gave some very variable weather, ranging from morning sun pillars to snowstorms to ice storms.
Morning sun pillars …
South side of Byng Inlet as seen in the snow from Dave and Maureen’s place …
Peek-a-boo…
Boucher quarry road …
A day later, warmer with some freezing rain …
Fixing the cause of the inevitable power outage…
Icicles …
Lots of icicles … (worth clicking on to get up close. Use the “back” button on your browser to return.)
Up close …
Sleeting on ice covered Big (Gereaux) Lake.
Drooping White Pine boughs …
Those needles will probably fall when the ice sublimates/melts …
Staghorn Sumac fruit …
twigs …
ice!!!
The wind has come up …
Ice covered tamaracks (and white pine and spruce in the background).
Still River as seen from Riverside Drive….
Not nice for driving and operating power equipment … but very nice to see and photograph!
We had a few days of comparatively warm and humid air during the daytimes. This led to some interesting sights….
The very cold several days prior had “cold-soaked” the rocks to temperatures in the low -20ºC. When the warmer weather arrived moisture in the air condensed on the cold rocks in the cuts lining the roads.
Here is an example, including the remains of a drill hole after blasting.
Hwy 529A was a good place to find frost flowers that accumulated overnight as moisture from the ditches would saturate the air and freeze to form the nice “flowers”…. (which can be seen up close, by clicking on the images a couple of times. Use the back button on your browser to return.)
Catenary chain and its shadow, in sparkling snow.
Early afternoon shadows under a blue sky …
Morning sky casting a different light on the snow resting on Byng Inlet:
Delicate light …
Cascade of ice on the rocks across from Wright’s Marina…
Icicles that formed during a breeze …
More delicate snow and frostflower scenes…
Looks like Reddy Fox went up the creek for a short excursion …
This winter has been very variable, very cold, warm spells, heavy snow —- all testing the photographer’s will to get out in it. But the rewards are some very different images from the more common scenes that I see. Such as this, the last one to end this post:
We had heavy snow all day …
…partially obscuring the far, Byng Inlet, shoreline, and a pair of ice huts:
We went for a short drive along Hwy 522…
Creek flowing from Grundy Lake PP to Portage Lake looking North from from Hwy 522:
Tamarack swamp west of Pakesley CPR crossing:
Experimenting with mood:
Hunt camp east of Jamot Lumber Road turn-off:
Rock cuts have new dimensionality:
No, the wind hasn’t changed direction! Still out of the east, but at our back as we return home:
Other side of the road:
Creek again, this time looking south:
Niffen’s fence post:
Snow storms are always quite exciting!
A low pressure area over Hudson’s Bay spread continental arctic air over this part of the world again so we had a day or two of bright, calm and cold weather. This is what we saw:
Jack pine skeleton on Hwy 407 enroute to Meshaw Falls…
Looking upstream from the Falls bridge.
Downstream ….
Creek flowing from Grundy Lake to Portage Lake at the snowmobile crossing….
Byng Inlet in the morning…
Adeline at dockside …
CPR trestle over Magnetawan River just as the sun sets. These vivid gold/oranges and dark blues are what we saw, characteristic of “Golden Hour” light.
Some folks really like Golden Hour Photographs. Fun to play with.
The first few days of the New Year brought some cold weather, a snowstorm and a couple days of cold clear weather. This is what we saw …
Bleak sunshine on the road ditch along Hwy 529A into Bayfield Inlet…
Twin Rivers is freezing up the first time this winter…
We practiced making pictures of falling snow, trying to capture the mood of the action. Focus mid-foreground. Longish shutter interval depending on windspeed driving the snow. Capture as much light as possible. I try to use ETTR generally.
Click on the images to see the real texture of the falling snow.
These were made along Hwy 529 including a trip into Hwy 529A:
Ancient (1907?) CPR concrete culvert under the MacTier-Sudbury branch, carrying CPR and CNR westbound traffic only. The eastbound traffic is handled by the CNR trackage.
Two fishing tugs resting at Bayfield Inlet for the winter.
Well convoluted rocks show up well behind the negligee of falling snow …
Jack pine stands out starkly alongside the road …
Typical sight along Hwy 529 … Tamaracks, Tag Alders, a dead Jack pine and distant White pines.
On the day after the storm little critters left tracks as they scurried from shelter.
On Still River Road Niffen’s fence post still points at a spruce tree.
We went for a drive up Jamot Lumber Road, which had just been plowed …
From the Bailey bridge over the Pickerel River …
On the way back, along Jamot Lumber Road…
Sun is getting low on the horizon… giving the snow a pinkish glow while the shadows reflect the scattered sunlight of the blue sky above…
Creek under Hwy 522 near Grundy Provincial Park is in shadow…
Nice colours at the end of day at Boucher’s Pit Road…
American Tree Sparrow is pecking seeds in my driveway …
Winter is here!
In addition to enjoying the textures of falling and fallen snow, we saw some interesting ice features, animal tracks and even some wildlife. And, of course, we stopped to appreciate the creative efforts that Brittonians made to light up the festive season.
Here a some samples:
Twin Rivers freezing up for the winter on Boxing Day …
Snow accumulating on New Year’s Day …
Ice building up on Harris Creek at Hwy 529 …
Delicate filigree in the ditch along Hwy 529A to Bayfield Inlet …
A deer left its tracks as it crossed Niffen’s fence line on Old Still River Road.
Pair of River Otters left their tracks and slide marks on Harris Creek along Hwy 529 …
Festive lights in Britt:
Dave and Irene’s…
Doug and Doreen’s …
Diana’s …
MJ’s …
Notice the shadow of the condensation trail on the closer cirrus clouds:
Red sky at night, sailor’s delight … clear, calm and cold the next day …
This ruffed grouse isn’t as fluffed up as the two in the following pictures…
These Ruffed Grouse have been feasting on the buds of Aspens, all species of cherries, and White and Yellow Birch…
And they appear all puffed up to insulate themselves from the cold…
Chain and its shadow across sparkling snow early afternoon… (click on the photo to see the detail.)
Snowball leaving tracks much later in the afternoon —– giving long purplish shadows and pink highlights.
We are getting our deep cold a month or two earlier than normal this year. Perhaps we will enjoy an early spring. While that would be very nice for us humans it might lead to further de-synchronization of floral and faunal associations.
It is not the fact that the climate is changing, it is the speed of change that ecosystems cannot keep up with. Last year’s spring, with its huge damage to deciduous leaf buds by the early hatching of larvae — before the arrival of their migrant predators (insectivore birdies), might be becoming more common.
Meanwhile we will enjoy it while we can.
Some of my friends know that I am challenged to capture the delicacy of the texture of snow, especially when sparkles demonstrate specular reflections of sunlight from crystal faces. Here are several examples of what I’ve been trying to get pictures of over the last week or so:
I am including this first one because the sources of light passing through the lens are very different and of some importance to a careful picture-maker.
Although the following is not a picture of snow, it illustrates the very different texture of frost crystals compared to snow.
New-fallen snow has very soft contrasts (except for the specular reflections). [Aged snow, which as melted and refrozen a few times, turns to sugar snow then to corn snow, with high contrast between the “grains”. I haven’t included any here since we’ve had no mild spells!]
Attempted compromise between capturing the sparkles without making the snow look like white beach sand:
Edge of an ice floe with some crystals freezing before the camera:
I had to include this because it is nice! …
One of these days I’ll learn why this frost flower has formed at this branch.
Very fresh windblown snow still with snow crystals.
Ragged shadow of the spruce tip shows the irregularity of the snow surface.
Delicate:
Also delicate …
SHARP! ….
One of my favorites ….
Two different cameras: This a FZ1000 at 432 mm:
GH4 with 100-400 Leica lens at 500mm EFL, which cost 4X as much:
Getting a good orientation of the snow surface is important…
Notice the windblown snow against the dark portions of the image.
Delicate …
Good exposure challenge …
What is the above collection to you?
Always a bit of fun, eh?
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