Sand and snow, ©voyager, all rights reserved
Our area is due to have a snowstorm later this afternoon with 10 – 15 cm of snow expected along with high winds. Right at the moment, though, it’s just bloody cold. This morning it was -13º C, but with the wind chill it felt like -24ºC so Jack and I didn’t stay out long. This photo was taken at the lake and for a moment I imagined we were on an ocean beach watching the surf come swirling in.
It’s the last chapter of Nightjar’s series and it’s beautiful.
Little things. Moss, rocks, wood, water. All so tiny and pretty.
©Nightjar, all rights reserved
From Avalus, some action photos and a bit of humour to get the week started.
Hey folks, I just found this gem from 2017.
*read in a actionfilmtrailervoice*
Butterfly and Bumblebee Actionsequence! Rumble around a thristleflower!
Airing next Spring in a Field near You (again)!
©Avalus, all rights reserved
©Avalus, all rights reserved
©Avalus, all rights reserved
Thanks, Avalus. That was fun.
Fiona is a baby hippo who was born 6 weeks prematurely at the Cincinnati Zoo. Keeping her alive was a massive undertaking, but she’s thriving now and has just celebrated her second birthday. Here’s a quick look back at some of the highlights of the past 2 years.
It’s time for the next chapter in Nightjar’s series.
I often amaze myself with the amount of time spent and number of photos taken without looking past a square meter of space. A love for macro photography tends to do that to people, I guess. Coming down the West Hill I noticed a patch of moss and lichen. It was a small patch, but with so many things going on. Enough to fill the last two chapters of this series. First, I was fascinated by tiny lichen.
©Nightjar, all rights reserved
Yesterday I posted a photo of some animal tracks I’d found in the snow that I thought might have been made by beavers. Well, they weren’t. Chigau sensibly suggested I google images of beaver tracks in the snow and I found lots of photos and none of them look anything like what I found. The photo below is one of the best images that I found and I’m sharing it in case anyone else wants to stalk beavers in the winter. They have 4 toes on their front feet and 5 toes on their back feet and the tracks are big, about 15 – 18 cm.
Well, now I know what to look for. Lofty and rq were both correct that the tracks I posted yesterday were made by rabbits. Here are a few more tracks from the same area. I think they’re also made by rabbits.
x marks the spot, ©voyager, all rights reserved
Unidentified Tracks by the River, ©voyager, all rights reserved
What is that strange wide arc? ©voyager, all rights reserved
Thankfully, yesterday’s rain storm didn’t turn into an ice storm so all my beloved trees are safe. It did, however, get cold again overnight so there’s a fair bit of ice on the ground making walking a bit treacherous. Jack and I decided that the sidewalks were too slippery so instead we went out to the river to look for beavers again. I’m pretty sure I know where their lodge is now, but I couldn’t get too near it today because of slippery and unstable ice. We found quite a few tracks going to and from the river in the area where I suspect they live, including this set that had a strange wide arc in one place that I thought cold have been made by a beaver tail. I’m no expert on tracks and marks left in the snow, but maybe someone reading this is. Are these beaver tracks?
Nightjar has more rocks for us in the next chapter of her series.
There are quartzites and quartz veins on this hill, but this path isn’t the best to see quartz veins. Still it is easy to find bits of quartz here and there. Quartz hunting is always fun (although if you are like me it tends to mysteriously fill pockets).
©Nightjar, all rights reserved
It seems that the normal weather for the month of March has arrived early in Southwestern Ontario. Overnight our temps climbed from -10ºC to +4ºC and with the warming came lots and lots of rain. Overnight it was freezing rain, but by morning it was just a steady, cold downpour. All our snow is melting into compacted sheets of ice and the rain is just laying on top making everything slick and slippery. At least the ice isn’t coating the trees, for now anyway. The temp is expected to drop below freezing by early evening and we can only hope that the rain will stop before then. It grieves me to see the big, mature trees heavy with ice and the saplings and dainty birches bending like contortionists desperate to save limb and life.
After a careful assessment, Jack and I decided that the back yard was as far as we would venture today. Even explorers and voyageurs need a day off now and then. So, sorry, no photo for today. Just kidding…here’s a fascinating tree I found at our local park last week. It’s dying, maybe already dead, but it’s decay is beautiful. I apologize for the bad light, but it was a gloomy January day. I wanted to take an initial photo with the intention to return and perhaps make a study of it. You can click for full-size to see some of the patterns on the bleached and barkless areas. The next photo is a piece of fallen bark that lay at the base of the tree. I moved it to a rock to take the photo.
©voyager, all rights reserved
©voyager, all rights reserved
Jack is not ready to go home. ©voyager, all rights reserved.
Here are some things I’ve learned from Jack.
Calling all rockhounds…Here’s Nightjar with the exciting next chapter in her series.
It’s not only the vegetation that is different here, the rocks are very different too. We left sedimentary rocks behind and we are now in the domain of metamorphic rocks. Mostly phyllites. Phyllite is a metamorphic rock originating from shale sediments, it’s soft and highly foliated, easy to split into sheets, and it smells of clay. The most wonderful characteristics? The colours and the sheen! You can’t mistake that sheen for anything else. Phyllites here are really pretty.
©Nightjar, all rights reserved
Trees in the News: According to Vox, the trees at Joshua Tree National Park in California are now one step closer to extinction thanks to the current US government shutdown.
According to National Parks Traveler, visitors are creating illegal roads and driving into some of the park’s most fragile areas. They are also chopping down trees, setting illegal fires, and graffitiing rocks. With Joshua Tree being roughly the size of Delaware, the eight on-duty law enforcement rangers had no way to stop all the prohibited activity.
Joshua trees are already facing possible extinction, with scientists claiming that the Joshua Tree habitat will be lost to climate change by 2100. Smith told National Geographic in October, “We’re just in crisis mode right now.” Twenty days into the government shutdown, vandals are accelerating the trees’ demise.
Why? Why must people be so short-sighted and destructive? The article at National Parks Traveler notes that Joshua trees were cut down so that 4 wheelers could go around entrance gates. Once inside the trespassers continued their destruction, tearing up virgin desert, running over plants, camping in off-limits areas, leaving behind heaps of trash and generally behaving like 3 year olds high on sugar and let loose in a toy store with no supervision. It’s one more thing we can add to the list of things that Trump is destroying.
The River Thames, ©voyager, all rights reserved
Finally, it’s proper winter in my part of Canada. On Saturday we had an old-fashioned snow storm with lots of blowing and drifting and when it was over we had an accumulation of about 15 cm of snow ready to be shoveled. On Sunday, though, the sun broke through and everything sparkled and glimmered and the world was so bright that I needed shades. Today the sun is back again and its glow on my face felt warm even though the temp was only about -12 C. Jack is as happy as a tick and spent our entire walk snorfling in the snow chasing imaginary mice and pouncing like a cat on the tracks left by rabbits. I may be a bit giddy from all this light, but it’s a glorious day and walking with Jack felt like a treat.
