Jann and I took a snowshoe hike outback this morning. Outback is actually almost 200 acres of woods and open fields owned by Dartmouth College. It has wonderful trails for skiing, snowshoeing, or hiking. No need to worry about our carbon footprint; we head out our garage door, put on snowshoes, and make two right turns.
I can’t do much of anything without taking some photos. Jann made a great subject, and leftover pieces of trees and plants were interesting in the snow. Then I noticed that someone had sprinkled some pepper at the base of a tree. I knew from experience what this actually was, but I didn’t expected it midwinter – it normally happens in the spring. They were snow fleas.
Snow fleas are tiny, harmless insects (not really fleas) that sometimes appear on the snow on a warmish day. Perhaps today qualified with the temperature hovering in the upper 20s. Fortunately I almost always carry a camera that has a great macro lens. This is often the only camera I carry when skiing, snowshoeing, or biking. So I was able to get some close-up shots of the tiny snow fleas. This photo here shows five of them next to a small tube of lip balm. It was the only thing we could find that would give scaled to the fleas.
What camera was I carrying? It was my trusty LX7 which is the newest in my series of LX2, LX3, and LX5 cameras. You can see more photos taken with this camera HERE and HERE. But don’t miss the short slide show below.
