Here are two offerings from winters past.
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Winter Captures
two captures during a time of lengthening days to welcome March 2022
Category: Malloryville Preserve
Meadow Stream, winter 3
Meadow Idyll
Snow under the gathering light of February, edges rounded by sunlight. Can you identify the animal tracks?
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All were from a tripod mounted Kodak DSC pro SLR-C with the Canon lens EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
Copyright 2021 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Meadow Stream, winter 2
Meadow Idyll
The glacial marls through which this water flows to emerge here clear and pure were under threat from development in the 1980’s and 1990. Thanks to the efforts of the landowner, the uniqueness of this environment was preserved.
You can easily compare a higher resolution versions of each image by clicking on each photograph to open a browser tab for each. Flip between the tabs to compare the images. Which do you prefer?
The first two photographs are combined and enhanced in photoshop to yield the third, combination, photograph.
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All were from a tripod mounted Kodak DSC pro SLR-C with the Canon lens EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
Copyright 2021 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Meadow Stream, winter
Meadow Idyll
This water emerges from glacial marls, pure and clear, before flowing into a kettle pond. Here we see it on a winter afternoon meandering across a meadow before joining the Fall Creek of the previous postings of this week.
You can easily compare a higher resolution versions of each image by clicking on each photograph to open a browser tab for each. Flip between the tabs to compare the images. Which do you prefer.
The first two are the same photograph. One has been enhanced in Photoshop. The other was perfected in Lightroom. The third is a different photograph taken about the same time, also peracted in Lightroom.
Click any photograph for a larger version.
All were from a tripod mounted Kodak DSC pro SLR-C with the Canon lens EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
Copyright 2021 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Frozen Fall Creek III
Across the years into a future
Gratitude for miracles witnessed is my emotion for this series, “Frozen Fall Creek.” Thirteen winters after Pam and I walked Fall Creek as a solid walking path, the stream flows without ice most years. My son, whose family now lives in the house, and his wife recalling walking the creek a few years ago, not in the past few years.
Weather records support our recollections and observations: here is an analysis of Ithaca January temperatures. The years 2009 through 2019 show a warming trend in daily temperatures for both minimum and maximum.
Analysis
Excel I used to plot minimum and maximum temperatures (farenheit) for the 31 days of each January for eleven years 2009 – 2019. Click on the images of this post for a larger version.
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Forecast
Pam and I moved to Ithaca 2011 and missed our Fall Creek winter walks, miss them even more now our weekend excursions are only memories. Here are January minimum/maximum average daily temperature projections from 2020 through 2044 based on the trend established from the 2009 through 2019 series. The trend is the solid color, projection the faded color.
Reading from the chart, if the current trend continues by January 2044 the average maximum daily temperature will be 47 degrees compared to 29 for 2009. In other words, the temperature never rose above freezing in the year 2009. By 2044 temperatures will be above freezing every day, on average, with daily minimums averaging 21 degrees.
From what I read, we can expect these warming trends to accerate within our lifetimes. My son named small mid-creek hummocks “islands” with numbers. Here is a view of his Second Island in late summer. What will Second Island be in 2044 late summer?
Memories
Reader of posts I and II of this series have commented about snow shadows. Here are the shadows produced from snow fallen on the vegetation of the last photograph: soft mounds to contrast with tree trunk shadows.
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I prefer the composition of the following photograph. What do you think?
A combination of contrasting shadow forms.
Click me for the first post of this series, “Frozen Fall Creek I.”
Click me for “Fall Creek Winter,” another stunning scene.
Copyright 2019 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Frozen Fall Creek II
Natural Ice Sculpture
My last post, “Frozen Fall Creek I”, ended with macros of Ice Crystals on a bed of frost over creek ice within sight of our former home, a restored water mill. I continued on the ice, following the creek to this spot were the stream bed turns 90 degrees, changing from a southerly to a western flow.
Here I encountered an open course where constant water motion resisted freezing. A few frigid days later, the course had an amazing transformation.
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The transparent ice of the now frozen space retained the impression of movement, the surface rippled by current. In the following photograph, motionless ice crystals reveal the truth.
In the intervening days, the constant motion resisted freezing while the water temperature dropped well past freezing to achieve a supercooled state. As the water temperature continued to drop, a fast transition from fluid to solid happened so quickly the movement of the water surface was preserved.
Here is the matching “after” photograph to the “before” that started this post.
Click me for “Fall Creek Winter,” another stunning scene.
Copyright 2021 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Frozen Fall Creek I
Ice Crystals
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Click me for the next post in this series, “Frozen Fall Creek II.”
Click me for another Winter Series starting with “The Fang?”
Copyright 2021 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Shuffle off
through the coals
Shuffling through the hot coals of autumn on All Souls Day.
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Click Me for another Malloryville post, “Formed By Water.”
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
The path beckons
just around the corner
What is there, just beyond?
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Click Me for another Malloryville post, “Formed By Water.”
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Dappled Sunlight
10,000 years
Walking here, I enjoy telling the grandchildren of the immense, mile-high ice sheet that once covered this land 10,000 years ago, creating these hills and hollows.
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Click Me for another Malloryville post, “Formed By Water.”
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 
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