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Friday, January 27, 2017

Friday's Hunt v 3.04

It's time for Friday's Hunt again.  This has been a very busy week again.  I am into my second week with my new work contract and it seems to be going well, but it is certainly keeping me occupied. The prompts for today's hunt from Eden Hills are:  Starts with D, Week's Favourite, and Close Up.

Starts with D
We had a major ice storm earlier this week.  For the provincial power utility, it was the worst ever storm on record for power outages.  There are still people without power.  We lost power for one night, but fortunately it was back on the next day.  Anyway, the letter D applies to lots of things related to the storm.

Dropped (or Downed) tree branches.  We had a lot of them, and there were also downed power lines all over the province.  It's taking a long time to clean up.  This branch is over part of our driveway - it's a big one!

Here you can see the damage at the top of a tree.

Here is the piece that dropped to the ground from that damaged tree - it nearly fell into the sheep and goat pen, but was stopped by other trees in the way!

Drooping trees.  The ice was so heavy on these birch trees, they were drooping down to the ground!


Dripping water, due to the temperature going above freezing for a short time after the storm.  Here you can see the drips on the top part of my bird feeder pole.


The driveway was a rather dangerous - rather like a skating rink!

Week's Favourite
It's not a great picture really, but this week I was very excited to see a male evening grosbeak at my feeder for the first time here in Sackville.  I hope he will come back!


Close Up
I took a lot of close-up shots of the ice after the worst of the storm was over.  Here are a few of those that I thought turned out well.  This old, dried birch leaf was encased in ice.

The cheerful red of this crab-apple still shows through its icy cage.

The yew shrub's branches were also encased in ice.

I think it's fascinating how this branch looks as if it has thorns, but those are just formed by the ice encasing the branch.  They must have formed when the precipitation was between rain and freezing rain, so as it dripped from the branch, it froze.


Finally, another tiny leaf - see how its serrated edges are so clearly defined inside the ice, and you can even see the patterns within the ice caused by the freezing water.

9 comments:

Tom said...

What a bunch of "D" evastating "D"s. Ice storms make for "D"elightful pictures, but that's it. Nice post Claire. I'll stop back next week.

Jim said...

a "D"astardly ice storm, Claire. I'm glad your new work is coming along fine. Did you have to miss some because of the storm? Driving didn't look very safe. I like your pretty grosbeak bird.
..

Margaret Birding For Pleasure said...

Your ice storm certainly give you a lot of photographs starting with D. Are of the close-up photographs of the ice are fabulous and I would be hard pressed to pick a favourite. Have a wonderful weekend.

Crazy Lady with purple fingers said...

What a mess! Poor trees! But love the great pictures.

Ralph said...

Winter can always look beautiful, bit what a mess! I hate ice storms and the loss of power as I do not like being cold in the house - our furnace is in the attic and we don't have a battery backup to keep it on which no electricity. Next year - a pellet stove to keep the house warm!

Gattina said...

That must have been a storm ! being without power is a nightmare for me ! It looks real cold in your area, the pictures are beautiful _

Jeanna said...

You got some quality photos and I'm sure it wasn't all that safe to shoot. There was an ice storm at my alma mater west of here where they showed some guys ice skating down the street. How did you deal with no heat for a day? The fireplace has saved me when that's happened here, thankfully it doesn't happen often.

Katherine Dunn/Apifera Farm said...

I love Grosbeaks. For the first time Martyn and i have feeders up-we couldn't have that at the former farm, but the Maine Apifera is more suited to them, so enjoying it...

Anonymous said...

Wonderful images from the storm! You certainly did capture a lot of great close ups. The grosbeak is quite handsome as well. Thanks for joining Friday's Hunt. Sorry I'm so late visiting this week.