Quite often after a snowfall in January or February it will get quite cold for a while here in New Hampshire when the storm moves out over the Atlantic and pulls the polar express in behind it. The coldest I’ve ever seen it is 35 below zero (F) and it has only gone that low twice in the 50+ years that I’ve been around to witness it. But, it’s not supposed to get anywhere near that this week. We are supposed to have relatively balmy temps, with highs in the 30s during the day and above zero at night. There is no talk of a January thaw just yet.
The river is just starting to ice up. Areas where the current runs slow along its banks get icy first and then the ice slowly grows in towards the middle. When I was a young boy I was walking on the ice of this river one day and all of the sudden it started cracking. It was so loud, echoing off the frozen river banks, that it sounded like gun shots as I ran and dove onto the bank. That adventure cured my curiosity about frozen rivers and I have never walked on one since.
Ice forms on everything near the river’s edge. It weighs down young shrubs and sometimes breaks their stems.
And sometimes they just wear ice collars.
Even the stones are coated in ice.
One night when the temperature dropped to below zero Jack Frost paid a visit and drew patterns on my windows. The frost edges looked like feathers, or ferns. Oddly enough these coldest temperatures happened on the night before the earth passed closest to the sun, January 2nd.
The different shapes that frost can grow into seem endless.
Did you ever wonder which end of a pine cone hit the ground first after it fell? Well, now you know.
This Shepherd’s purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris) seed head was the only thing poking up out of a large expanse of white.
These bracket fungi must have been frozen solid.
The vernal pools in the forest are also beginning to freeze. A vernal pool is temporary and does not hold water year around. “Vernal” means “occurring in spring,” and these small pools are usually at their maximum depth in the spring due to snow melt and runoff. In the hot, dry days of June, July and August they will disappear completely. Frogs, toads, salamanders, insects and many plants rely on these pools.
I wasn’t expecting to see this poor tree frog on top of the snow. I followed his short trail to find that it began in the middle of nowhere, so he either dug his way up from the soil to the snow’s surface or fell out of a tree. I’ve always heard that they burrow into mud for the winter but he seemed to have a broken leg, and that got me wondering if he had fallen out of a tree. Other than wishing him well, there was little I could think of to do for him.
The wasps inside these oak galls will fare much better than the tree frog, I’m sure. They will emerge in spring when it is warm and the snow has melted.
If you are seeking creative ideas, go out walking. Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk. ~Raymond Inmon
Thanks for stopping in. I hope you see plenty of bright sunshine and bearable temperatures, no matter where you live.
Wonderful photos, Allen…great macro shots of the frost…loving that new camera, I’ll bet.
Thanks Scott. Yes, the new camera is a lot of fun. I’m really still getting used to all its settings, but enjoying it.
Most welcome…keep having fun.
I really enjoyed this post Allen! Very nice photos. I think I might want to hide in a gall too if the temp got down to 30 degrees below. I have never experienced anything below 5 below zero.
Thanks! 35 below is a bit much but thankfully it doesn’t happen that often! Once or twice in a lifetime really seems to be enough!
I enjoy winter much more when I see great pictures of it and know that the other side of America has it too.
Thanks Montucky. Winter is alive and well here in New Hampshire, but they say we might be seeing a thaw later this week.
Enjoyable winter wander. Just as much to observe as in summer. Never thought of the ice around the stalks as collars, a neat way to look at them. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Grampy! The collar thing just popped into my head-not sure why.
Love those ice ‘ferns’ on your window pane. And, to answer your query, it does snow in winter in the UK especially in the North – but because of the North Atlantic Drift it’s generally much milder here than the US east coast.. Down here, where I live in Sussex, we’ve had a fair bit of snow in the past few years but it doesn’t tend to hang about for long – makes it all the more special and beautiful when the white stuff does come. D
Thanks David. I think I have a slightly better understanding of a U.K. winter.
Poor froggy!!
Love your shots of frost on the windows and the ice covered shrubs best.
Thanks! I know-the frog made a mistake and nature doesn’t allow too many of those.
Nice post, but poor frog. That’s nature, right. I used to go ice fishing with my dad, but I always let him go first onto the ice then followed closely. It was scary when the ice cracked! But so fun to sit in the warm shanty and see the fish swimming around below the ice.
I know-we’re probably better off not knowing what happened to the tree frog.
I love it when ice is clear enough to see almost to the bottom but just thinking about it cracking beneath me makes my stomach do flip flops! That was a scary experience on the river that day.
What a fabulous set of photographs, Allen! Ice is one of my most favorite subjects (as you can probably tell). You’ve found some wonderful treasures along the river’s edge. I had the very experience you’ve mentioned of the ice cracking very recently in Maine on the pond. I was actually lying on the ice (as I tend to do when taking photographs) and not only heard the crack but felt the ice shift beneath me. It was an unforgettable sensation. The crack was visible to me a few feet away. I carefully inched my way back to land and was fine.
One of the most marvelous sounds I’ve ever hear is what we call the “groaning of the pond” in its early stages of freezing. (The pond is really more the size of a lake, but as you probably know they call it a pond in Maine because of its depth). It’s often a sound we can hear at night. It’s an indescribable and haunting sound that echoes through the woods.
I am sad for the little tree frog, but as you say, there wasn’t anything you could do for him. I love the shot of the oak galls.
Thank you Melanie. I like your shots of the ice that you have posted recently-is fascinating to see all of the different shapes and textures inside it.
Your experience with the pond cracking while you were on it sounds as scary as mine was with the river. Yes, I’ve heard lakes and ponds “groan” as the ice moves and expands and as you say, it is an eerie sound. I grew up just a stone’s throw from a river and they are really noisy in the winter, with all the cracking and popping going on.
I’m not sure what happened to the tree frog, but nature always has a way of taking care of these things.
Ice and bubbles are 2 of my absolute favorite things! I hear the angels whisper too.
If you like Ice then you would love New Hampshire! That quote has a lot of truth in it, doesn’t it?
It sure does!
The frost pictures are fantastic, and the photo of the river makes me want to take up winter steelhead fishing again. But then, I remember the hours of bone chilling cold while standing in a partially frozen river, not catching anything, and I think that I’ll pass on that.
Thanks-the frost pictures were actually pretty easy. I’m with you-it would have to be a mighty tasty fish to get me to stand in that river in January!
I never kept them. I would turn them back so that they could finish their reason for being in the river, spawning, to make more steelhead for future years. You’d have to hook a steelie and try to land it to understand that part.
I’ve never caught one, but I used to love catching fish that put up a good fight. Freshwater eels are one of the best fighters that I’ve seen, and the rivers are full of them.
A wonderful set of pictures that have lightened up another gloomy day here for me.
Thank you. I’m sorry to hear that you’re still stuck in the doldrums there. Maybe the payback for all of the gloom you’re experiencing now with be a glorious, sunny summer. At least we can hope!
I’m not holding my breath.
Thanks for your good wishes and your wonderful photos. Yesterday it was mostly sunny and it got up to the mid-40′s here in Northern Virginia. Last night was supposed to get into the 20′s which is cold for her.
I grew up outside of Boston (and spend one year of my childhood in Bangor, Maine), so I have experienced the cold. I don’t miss it too much, though the beauty of the snow-covered landscape is undeniable.
I wouldn’t miss the extreme cold either Mike, but I like a day when it’s just above freezing and the sun is shining. Today is supposed to be like that and I can’t wait to get out there and take some pictures. I look forward to seeing more of yours too. Take care.
I envy you having cold winters. A couple of recent winters excepted, we generally have mild winters where everything is damp, grey and dull with short days that last far less than normal working hours so you seem to live your life in the dark. I’m lucky in that my work gets me out and about but I still long for frosts and clear cold days where the air has a crackle and the sky is that wonderful winter blue that we get far too infrequently.
One thing I have to say about the U.K. is that I never seem to know if it snows there or not. I’ve seen pictures with snow but as you say, it must be rare. I think I’d have to agree that I’d rather have snow than just damp-if it’s going to be winter then it might as well snow. Something we do have in common in winter is the darkness-we don’t escape that. The main difference is that our darkness can be very dangerous because of the extreme cold and those who forget that can pay a steep price.