Some Photos, Just for the Record

Well, we got the snow and cold I was wishing for in my last post 12 days ago. Plenty of snow and definitely sub-zero temps.  As a winter-lover, I should have been out every day. But I'll be honest.  I just wasn't into celebration, whether of nature's winter beauty or anything else, my heart so heavy with anger, sorrow, and fear for my country. Murderous thugs mob our nation's streets, and our President and his lying toadies urge them on, with claims that belie what our own eyes and ears can can plainly see and hear, thanks to the brave bystanders who have practiced their Constitutional rights to document the horrible truth. Some losing their lives to do so.

I did go out and I did take some photos, but my mind was otherwise distracted and could not concentrate on blogging.  But just for the record, I'm posting those photos here.  At some point later, I might just want to look back at these dates and places to learn what nature was doing while my troubled thoughts were elsewhere.

Zen Brook at Moreau Lake State Park, January 14

My friend Sue Pierce and I refer to the brook that tumbles down a mountainside here as "Zen Brook," acknowledging the peaceful and meditative mood we enter as we listen to its babbling stream. On previous visits this winter, the watercourse had been dry, but recent rains and warming temps had managed to restore its soothing music.

Even in the deepest cold of winter, we find much of botanical interest in the beautiful green mosses and liverworts that thrive unimpaired on the splash-dampened creekside boulders. Here, Sue is taking some macro photos of one of the liverworts.

According to Sue, the iNaturalist botanists she consulted suggest that this is the liverwort called Porella platyphylla (also known as Wall Scalewort).  It does like a dampish habitat and grows on both wood and rocks.

Some fungi persist through the winter, too, and this rotting tree stump was home to several of them.

These bright-yellow tiny cups are the fungus called Lemon Drops or Fairy Cups (Bisporella citrina), a very common species we find all year around on rotting wood.

On this same stump, I noticed these patches of a deep-pink fungus that looked as if someone had daubed pink paint on the rotting wood.  Sue posted photos of it on iNaturalist, where she learned its name is most likely Tulasnella violea, a fungus in the Order Cantharellales.  I had never seen this one before, although we once did find another Tulasnella species (T. aurantiaca) not far from this site, although that species was bright red and gummy, not flat and pink like this one.

I do know the name of this fungus, the pale-tan caps of which were crowding the length of a nearby  rotting log: Luminescent Panellus (Panellus stipticus). This wood-dwelling fungus earned its descriptive vernacular name by actually glowing in the dark.  I have never witnessed this trait myself, but every one of my mushroom guidebooks mentions it.  This mushroom's specific name, stipticus, was probably suggested by its reputed ability to staunch bloodflow from wounds.

The frosted tan caps of this fungus is not all that distinctive, but the way its gills radiate from an off-center, very short curving stalk certainly is.

Big Bend Trail at Moreau Lake State Park, January 20

The brisk wind of this bitterly cold day might have kept me snug indoors, if my friend Sue had not urged me to join her on the easily walkable trail at this recently opened preserve. It is an attractive trail, with views of mountains rising beyond the Hudson, and several wooded swamps and ponds along the way. How could I resist?

We sure had to bundle up to enjoy it, though! I think Sue's glasses have frosted over here.

Only a few little cottony clouds impeded the sun's warming rays.  Kind of.

This photo shows how the wind was whipping the stalks of Phragmites and the fluffy split pods of the Cattails.

We headed out onto the solidly frozen snow-covered ice of one of the ponds that line this trail. Would we encounter the determined creature (a fox?) who loped straight across the pond?

We never did see any more sign of a fox, but the distinctive curving trails of several foot-dragging White-tail Deer encouraged us to follow where they were heading.

All deer trails led to the interior of a Phragmites thicket, which must have offered some cozy shelter to the deer.

The trail of this mouse was quite distinctive, indicating the little creature's hopping gait as it dragged along its long tail. 

We always enjoy trying to ID the winter remnants of plants that persist throughout the winter. The star-topped stone-hard pods of Maleberry fruits (Lyonia ligustrina) are among the easiest to recognize. These winter pods suggest how this shrub acquired the alternate vernacular name, Hard Huckleberry.

 

In the sandy meadows, we found many dried remains of Round-headed Bush Clover (Lespedeza capitata). I discovered that if I boosted the exposure of my photos, I could eliminate the distracting shadows of the snowy background, while still preserving the structure of the plant remnants.

That exposure-boosting technique also worked well for capturing just the beauty of a Goldenrod plume.

We didn't need to see the blue flowers to recognize the candleabra shape of these Blue Vervain (Verbena hastata) flower heads.

Ice Would Be Nice!

There's a lovely stream that tumbles down the mountain that rises along the west side of Moreau Lake. Because of recent rains, there's water in that creek this week, and soon, the temperature will be falling well below freezing. Such were the same conditions eight years ago when I captured in photographs some of the dramatic results of water splashing into subfreezing air. Incredible crystalline beauty!  It sure would be great to see such beautiful ice formations again.  Maybe we will.

Meanwhile, here are some of the photos I took of that gorgeous ice eight years ago.  

When flowing water meets bitter cold, fantastically beautiful ice formations can occur.  Some of these formations are glassy and globular:

Others are opaque and frosty white:

The splashing drops from the tumbling stream create curtains of icicles hanging from limbs that have
fallen across the streambed.

I have yet to understand how these particular "isobar" ice formations occur.  They form a plate suspended above the now mostly depleted stream, and these plates are so thin and fragile I could almost  imagine that they were formed from freezing vapor instead of liquid water. 

Here's one more fantastical ice formation that just amazed me:  clusters of frozen bubbles encased in clear crystalline ice. There must have been a thin layer of transparent ice that formed when the stream was fuller, but as the water level fell and became more rollicking, foaming bubbles splashed up from the rushing water below and then were held intact by that thin ice layer above. I nearly wept from the beauty this icy activity created. 

Here's one more photo of ice gorgeousness I witnessed more recently at another location, this one a creek that flows through the Orra Phelps Nature Preserve in nearby Wilton:  dangling trumpets of ice that formed when water splashed up on the twigs of a branch that fell over the rushing water. I was dazzled by how the light danced around the trumpets as the water played around them.

This time, I laughed out loud for joy, overcome with delight that I could witness such winter beauty.

Photo by Dana Stimpson

Here's hoping our current winter offers us similar reasons to feel such delight!

Have a Happier New Year

Sorry, dear friends, I'm at least 10 days late to wish you all a Happy New Year.  But I sure do hope it will be a happier year than this past year was for me. Pain and muscular weakness from knee replacement surgery last February has limited my aerobic activity up until now, causing loss of fitness that continues to curtail all but the easiest outdoor adventuring. Then recently, Death swung his mortal scythe through multiple beloved family members and dear friends, which cast a pall over holiday happiness. A stomach virus descended upon me, too, and the headache, nausea, and fatigue hung around for weeks after I'd supposedly healed.  And of course, our nation's political crises have added rage and anxiety to this noxious mix. 

Our weather hasn't helped, either. No sooner did we get the kind of sparkling snow and crystalline ice we winter-lovers crave, than freezing rain arrived to ruin it all. And sheet-ice on my front steps sent me crashing down in a backside-bruising bumpy slide before I had managed to sprinkle on the Ice Melt. Deprived of the beautiful ice formations along tumbling creeks, I've had to find delight in the lacy crystals that grew from the salt I finally spread on my steps.  They were really pretty though:

And then, the very best remedy for deep funk arrived this past Thursday:  A gorgeous, blue-sky, sun-warmed afternoon with the very best of nature-loving pals.  My dear friends Sue Pierce (red coat) and Dana Stimpson joined me to stroll around on the finally frozen-over Moreau Lake.

It was easy walking across the snow-covered 8-inch thick ice, with puffy low clouds drifting lazily across the sky. We could see there were quite a few ice fishermen out on the lake, and I suggested we go visit them to find out if any fish were biting today.

Well, whatever residual grumpiness still lurked in my spirit this day, it was certainly dispelled by this young man's ample cheerfulness.  His name is Dylan, and he simply glowed with pleasure, sitting here surrounded by his seven flagged holes, even though not a single one had yet required his hurrying to check what fish had snagged the bait.  Despite his apparent youth, he was a very accomplished hunter and fisherman, having successfully tested both of those skills in several different regions of our continent, although he lived close by, on one of the bays of the Hudson River.  We three delighted in hearing of his adventures, and he seemed quite pleased that we were eager to do so.  I was struck by how at ease he seemed in his solitude, too, content in his own mind and memories, perhaps, while also happy to converse with us. He also appeared to be enjoying the remarkable warmth of this windless day that allowed him to bask bare-armed in the bright sunlight.

Here is another cheerful fellow we met on our way back to our cars. I'm sorry I neglected to ask his name, but I did ask him to hold up that gorgeous Rainbow Trout he had caught today.  Wow!  No wonder he looked so happy!

Such jolts of joy, this sun-warmed, blue-sky, friendship-lifted adventure provided me! Everything about it helped me move out from under my personal clouds and look forward to more joys to come.