2012 Winter - Not Worth the Wait - #

Final assessment as of March 2012: No, it wasn't worth the long wait.
I can't remember a year when there was so little true winter weather in NW Ohio and SE Michigan until January. So little snow. So little weather that was cold enough for long enough to allow ice to form on rivers, lakes, ponds, or even puddles. It remains to be seen whether what is left of this year's winter can make up for this deficiency. Yes, as a photographer I long for long snowy cold spells punctuated with the clearest brightest sunniest days of the year. As of early January, my photo opportunities have been pretty pathetic. Things didn't get much better during February. March turned out to be the warmest March on record for Ann Arbor, with a higher monthly average temperature than the following April!!!

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The faint traces of color aren't from the ice itself, but from leaves and other vegetation beneath the thin layer of ice that had formed over the flooded grass around the pond at Gallup Park. This ice had the aspect of a frozen mush or slurry...very non-crystalline.

In other shots of holes in ice with thin radiating arms, I've called them 'ganglia'. See, for example, some shots taken at Crooked Lake. (http://arctangent.smugmug.com/Places-Near/Crooked-Lake/Crooked-Lake-Winter/5491345_wWRNX5)

January 2, 2012
Gallup Park, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Signalling for a turn?

A lone swan had the run of the flooded pond on this windy day, except for a few mallards along the shore. Most of the Canada geese were out of the water, grazing or sleeping on the cold hard ground.

January 2, 2012
Gallup Park, Ann Arbor, Michigan .

Each shot of these bejeweled stems, combined with the contorted reflections of stems and branches, was unique.

January 2, 2012
Gallup Park, Ann Arbor, Michigan

All around the pond frozen smooth blobs of ice clung to stems of grass and overhanging tree branches. I couldn't tell whether they were in the process of forming or disappearing. Some, like this set, cast interesting reflections of their undersides to go with the constantly shifting reflections of twigs and stems.

January 2, 2012
Gallup Park, Ann Arbor, Michigan

The ice blobs on the grass stems sparkled like crystal whenever the sun broke through the overcast.

January 2, 2012
Gallup Park, Ann Arbor, Michigan

What I think of as the back corner, the northwest corner, of the south section of Crooked Lake (marked as Sylvan Pond on some maps). The view is roughly toward the west. With the leaves off the trees, you can finally see that the hilly nature of the surrounding woodlands continues here even though an extensive flat marshy area marks the southern terminus of the lake.

The nice thing about ice (outside, in winter) is that it is rarely ever white. Here you see reflected color dispersion from sunlight passing through thin clouds.

January 4, 2012
Crooked Lake

Watery winter light creating reflections on lake ice.

Taken from the public fishing dock area on the west side of Crooked Lake.
January 4, 2012

Tracks made in light snow (~ 1/4 inch deeep) by some small animal. To my untrained eye, this seems to be a set of three separate tracks made by a very small four-footed animal that was running or hopping. There is no sign of a tail hitting the snow. On the left the two sets of tracks seem to represent the animal coming and going.

January 4, 2012

The faint traces of color aren't from the ice itself, but from leaves and other vegetation beneath the thin layer of ice that had formed over the flooded grass around the pond at Gallup Park. This ice had the aspect of a frozen mush or slurry...very non-crystalline.

In other shots of holes in ice with thin radiating arms, I've called them 'ganglia'. See, for example, some shots taken at Crooked Lake. http://arctangent.smugmug.com/Places-Near/Crooked-Lake/Crooked-Lake-Winter/5491345_wWRNX5)

January 2, 2012
Gallup Park, Ann Arbor, Michigan