And it’s not even winter yet.
Snow on the remains of a plant.
Taken on a walk last week, the title is because I don’t know what they are remains of.
As I was on one of my regular routes I must have walked past the plant lots of times without noticing it. I suspect that it is a combination of the light and the snow on the plant that caught my attention this time.
I was in a retro mood and had gone out with a manual focus telephoto on the camera which meant walking over some snow covered boulders to get the framing I wanted. Sometimes it pays to use a zoom when out for a walk.
Redwing eating a Holly berry.
Throwback Thursday travels back to Cheshire, England in the mid 1980s.
The Redwing (Turdus iliacus) is a member of the Thrush family. They are winter visitors to Britain arriving in the autumn after breeding in northern regions of Europe and Asia. Wintering birds sometimes form loose flocks numbering up to 200 birds but I seem to remember this being a solitary bird. It’s feeding on a berry of a Holly (Ilex aquifolium) tree.
The photo was taken from a bedroom window so I was slightly higher than the bird but not enough for the angle to look odd. It was used in a field guide to garden wildlife and it was taken in a garden unlike some of my other photos used in the book.
Common Redpoll feeding.
Icicles in the snow.
Spotted on a walk last Tuesday afternoon. It had been sunny most of the day until I had a chance to go for a walk with the camera when it started clouding over.
I think that the snow had got warm enough in the sun to start thawing and then the water was freezing as it ran down to the tips of the branches. I don’t know why the tips of a couple of the icicles are crooked.
Christmas lights on bagpipes.
This week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge is Christmas Lights.
I decided to go with something a little different. A year ago I was on a side street for the formation of the Wiarton Santa Claus parade on the South Bruce Peninsula.
It was quite amusing, there was a selection of police vehicles at the head of the parade followed by a fire truck. After some discussion a local pipe and drum band marched past them all to lead the parade. The bagpipes and some of the drums had Christmas lights on them.
Here the band is marching past the fire truck heading to the front of the parade.
Week 49. A weak sun pillar.
Wednesday morning of week 49 saw me down at the Colpoy’s Bay shoreline before sunrise.
As the sun came up a weak sun pillar formed over the Niagara Escarpment. Sun pillars form when there are suitable ice crystals in the atmosphere. The pillar is the sunlight reflecting off the crystals.
The sun pillar is the perpendicular beam of light in the centre of the frame above the Niagara Escarpment.
Just to side track for a minute, my week 29 photo ‘A bird in the rain‘ is featured in a 2019 birds calender.
