Its been a crazy winter so far. Some bitter cold. Some unseasonably warm stretches. Some big snows.
This post will have many photos of the snows that covered the Upper Valley for parts of these two months. But first, Snow Buntings.
Snow Buntings
Photographing Snow Buntings has been a challenge for me this winter. I have seen them in three towns in NH and VT, but getting close enough for decent photos has been tough. They seem more skittish than I remember. The best photos have been of a flock in flight as in the photo above taken at Crossroad Farm in Post Mills VT.
Perhaps the reason I remember Snow Buntings as tame is because of the one that walked right up to our car at the Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon (at the “Diamond Beach”) in Iceland. Here is the photo I took in 2017.
I visited Crossroad Farm in January specifically to try to photograph Snow Buntings. Tim Taylor helped me find them. I might not have seen them without his help. Here are a few of the photos I took.
Then in February I found a flock two miles from our home. Jann and I were making a quick trip to town, and this was one of the few times I did not have a long lens with me. But after our errand, I drove home, traded Jann for a camera with long lens, and returned to the flock that was still present where we originally saw them.
Here are some of the photos of the Snow Buntings in Etna.
Snow
Winter started on December 16 with a snow storm that dumped over a foot of heavy snow on parts of the Upper Valley. Some folks, especially on the western side of the river, were without power for days. This is our driveway after being plowed once or twice.
Below are 17 of the photos I took December 16 and 17, 2022 in Etna. I did not have to go far to find subjects in the beautiful snow that stayed on the trees for many days. It was a real winter wonderland.
I played around with reflections of our tiny Christmas tree in our windows in the early dawn light of December 18.
Inspired by the nice sunrise that morning …
… I ventured out and took a few more photos, still from spots in Etna.
Then it warmed up and rained. The snow disappeared and bare ground returned. The birds find other things to eat when the ground is bare so they consume much less sunflower seed. A minor blessing. These two photos show Blood Brook in Norwich on the second day of 2023.
January brought a few snow storms that covered the trees and ground for a while before weather warmed and the snow melted again. Yes, it has been a strange winter. Here are some photos from January and early February from Hanover, Etna, Enfield, Post Mills, Norwich, and Thetford Center.
Deer
White-tailed deer seem to come out when the ground is snow covered. Even when it is snowing. Here are a dozen photos from December and January.
Hikes
No long hikes or mountain scrambles these two months, but a few nice hikes nonetheless. One in Orange and two in Lebanon.
In Orange, NH, Frank and I hiked the Northern Rail Trail to the Great Cut. This is a railroad cut at a height of land that separates the Connecticut and Merrimack watersheds. The photo below is from a spot along the rail trail NW of the cut.
The sides of the cut had wonderful ice sculptures. Here Frank is photographing some of them.
Below is a slide show of some of the photos I took of the ice in the Great Cut.
Bruce and I twice hiked the Landmark Lands in Lebanon — once from the trailhead at DHMC and another time from a trailhead to the SE off Dartmouth Ave. Our goal for the second hike was an old quarry. It was mostly just an impressive pile of rocks.
For both hikes the trails had little snow but were frozen and icy in spots so our microspikes served us well. On the loop down we passed the remains of a granite block transport vehicle.
Below are seven more photos from the pair of hikes on Landmark Land in January.
Bellows Falls, Vermont
When the trees are bare, the snow is getting old, and the winter birds have begun to head back north, I sometimes entertain myself walking around an interesting village and photographing whatever meets my fancy. I think Bellows Falls is ideally suited for this type of photographic escape.
I spent about an hour in Bellows Falls walking around, probably covering a total of less than half a mile. Interesting things to photograph are right in the center of town. And Bellows Falls seems to be filled with a concentration of artists displaying their creations in stores, on buildings, and along the street.
Even though I visited on a Sunday and most of the stores were closed, what I saw along the street made for great photo subjects. Like this huge uncomfortable-looking chair.
I photographed the silhouette figures in the Adams Grist Mill windows. These paintings are not that challenging to photograph, but they still make interesting subjects to share with others.
Shadows and beams of light are not real objects, but they can take on an important role and be a major part of the image. Almost like a real object or the subject of the photo.
And then there is the stray lightbulb hanging in space. Actually there were many of these along Canal Street, a quarter mile you don’t want to miss.
Just like photographing reflections of fall foliage in a river, often the best reflections happen when the subject that is being reflected is in the sunlight but the reflecting surface is in shadow.
For some reason I photographed a bank of electrical boxes. Then when editing the image, I added two small features that were not present in the straight shot.
Then I noticed something strange: all of the meters were reading zero. Below is a cropped portion of the above photo.
I had taken a second photo where I cropped to just the meters. In that photo the meters are showing non-zero numbers, though most are the same reading. I conclude that these meters were flashing, and I caught them at two different times in their cycles. A cropped version of the second photo is below.
I played with some of the photos I took, intentionally minimizing detail. Here are the results.
Here are a few more photos from Bellows Falls. A charming and somewhat funky town.
Birds
The highlights of these first two months of winter include (click the words linked to previous blogs, if you wish): Evening Grosbeaks; Bohemian Waxwings and a Red-tailed Hawk on the lam; Lapland Longspurs, Horned Larks, a pair of Bald Eagles, and Pine Grosbeaks; plus the Snow Buntings in this blog post.
But I also photographed Tufted Titmice in Etna and Post Mills, American Tree Sparrows at Crossroad Farm, Mourning Doves in Etna, and American Crows in Etna. Here are those photos.
Structures
As I travelled around throughout the Upper Valley to photograph snow scenes and birds, I photographed buildings and parts of buildings.
Below are a few more structures I photographed these two months.
Random Photos
Here are a few more photos from my wanderings.
Split tree in Hanover.
Ice on Berrill Farms pond in Etna.
Unicyclist at Dartmouth.
Skeletons in Enfield.
A few Sunrises and Sunsets
