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.
The heavy snowfall of November 19th froze and remained intact for the trip to Parry Sound for our winter tire changeover on November 20th. This is what we saw on the return to Britt via Skerryvore Community Road.
Ritchie Drive off of Woods Road, North of Nobel.
CPR crossing at Woods Road…
Westbound on Skerryvore Community Road …
These look south from Skerryvore Community Road…
Stream flowing into Big Lake off of Hwy 259 …
I just came across this, confirming that North Americans have a lot to be thankful for. ( Scoring method. )
On November 19th we woke to a heavy snowfall of wet snow that had frozen to the landscape. This is what we saw around Britt.
Across the highway along Boucher’s Pit Road:
Old Still River Road …
Still River from Hwy 526 …
From Old Legion Lane
Byng Inlet from Riverside Road …
Tom and Sue came by and pointed out this nest across the road from Joe and Allison’s place. I emailed Joe Campbell at http://www.gananoque.com/goh/joe.htm
who told me that the nest was made by a colony of bald-faced hornets.
You may remember this wasp consuming its prey in this September 1st post.
In that post I mis-identified the wasp a Great Black Wasp. It is actually a Bald-Faced Hornet consuming a big hoverfly.
This load of snow on winterberries reminds me of Marge Simpson!
And every time I see this great carving I am reminded of my late dear friend John.
He is sadly missed by our little community and by kith and kin across our Country.
We enjoyed some warmth in early November before a dramatic change on November 9th, 10th and the 11th when it froze hard.
Here is a nice example of a Butter and Eggs flower which was enjoying Nov 7th along the roadside of Hwy 529.
“Linaria vulgaris (common toadflax, yellow toadflax, or butter-and-eggs) is a species of toadflax (Linaria), native to most of Europe, northern Asia, the United Kingdom, Spain, east to eastern Siberia, and western China. It has also been introduced and is now common in North America.”
The pollinated ripening seed pods are under the blossoms at the tip of the plant.
Cold Continental Arctic air moved in near the end of the week giving bright blue sky colours and low shivering temperatures.
Byng Inlet from Britt…
Western sky from the former Dream Inn on Hwy 69…
Afternoon sun on a Tamarack, looking East from Highway 69 at Clear Lake (part of Grundy Lake Provincial Park).
Farmhouse and wagon wheels on Hartley Bay Road …
Pond on Hartley Bay Road …
Puzzling puddle of ice near Louisa and Bowes Street, Parry Sound. More about this later …
Pancakes of ice formed on Big Lake …
Cloud patches generated nice dappled scenes…
Evening sun on Byng Inlet…
These ice formations led to some illuminating conversations with other naturalists …
Hmmmm….
Little bubbles ….
Frost crystals … formed from condensing water vapour at the Frost Point temperature.
Here are excerpts from a recent email correspondence:
Those puzzling rings….
The puddles froze for the first time on a very cold night (about -20ºC) after comparatively warm (>0ºC) days and nights. Cooling of both the water surface and land surface was due to radiative cooling on the clear night. Because of convective mixing* of water in the puddle, I suspect that water at the very edge of the puddle reached 0ºC first.
*At the start of the night water in the puddle and surrounding land was warm but cooling. The water at the edges of the puddle cooled faster than the deeper water in the centre. Surface water cooled to +4ºC, when liquid water is densest, and sank to bottom. As the cooling continued the colder (than +4º) water rose or stayed on the surface and froze, starting at the edges of the puddle.
The large bands would result from the progressive freezing of the puddle from the outer circumference. It would be modified by the varying depth of the water in the interior of the puddle. The nature of that progressive freezing would also depend on the rates of temperature drop and the seepage out of the unfrozen bottom of the puddle.
Since can form from liquid water and from condensing water vapour, I suspect that the variation in the the bands is due to varying amounts of frost (frozen condensed water vapour) on the underside of the ice sheet over the puddle.
Vertical structures…
I am now convinced that those vertical structures are long vertical (cylindrical) bubbles of air entrained in the ice.
How they got there is a matter for further observation and thinking.
In the above case the ice crystals are formed from condensing water vapour at the Frost Point temperature.
Nice range of photos: https://www.flickr.com/groups/frozenpuddles/pool/
AHA!!! Vertical expanses of bubbles frozen in water: https://www.flickr.com/photos/incrediblehow/6808582093/in/pool-frozenpuddles/
Another one. “Air in Ice” …. https://www.flickr.com/photos/gripspix/2396360040/in/pool-frozenpuddles/
Then I found this:
Description of “ring formation”: http://www.storyofsnow.com/blog1.php/why-do-frozen-ponds-and-puddles-have-lines
The above description explains how the ring formation is affected by the role of surface tension “pulling” the surface of the water up to the undersurface of the ice. Very nice.
So I think we’re on the right track here. Now, if we could only understand the formation and propagation of those ice bubbles the Universe would be understood, eh?
On a visit to Parry Sound we stopped to see the statue of Francis Pegahmagabow at the Stockey Centre for the Performing Arts. He is one of the “soldier chiefs” who returned from service in WWI to exercise political leadership back in Canada.
These unknown berries were seen on a 2m high shrub/tree at the mail turnaround at Burnside Bridge Road and Hwy 124.
Storm clouds over Twin Rivers.
Highway 529 …
Snow flurry over Twin Rivers …
Snow is sticking at the north end of Hwy 529 …
Cow Parsley umbels are catching and holding some melted snow …
… and finally … some melted snow on a milkweed pod …
Winter is on its way.
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