The ephemeral beauty of open water and very cold temperatures.
Water vapour rising and coating the nearby flora in thick frost.
Even the ice, struggling to form at the fringes, finds the air so cold it has coaxed downy feathers to grow on its surface for keeping warm.
Of course, there are more interesting and scientific explanations…here and here…
© Karen McRae, 2013
The water is restless in this part of the river. It pushes on all winter.
The ice tries to stretch over the surface like a cold blanket, but it cannot. The water persuades it to break apart, to keep moving.
The ice talks to the river with deep groans and quiet thuds. It rocks gently, waiting. An indolent heartbeat.
The river finds a crack, heaves a deep breath, and replies.
The river’s edge in -25c.
© Karen McRae, 2013
There are more “mosaic” seed heads (see previous entry) I think I might post but this icy flower image was taken a day later – the day after the freezing rain. The temperature had dropped significantly and that made things look quite different.
The ice is shaped by these fluctuations.
A tiny world of rapid change.
© Karen McRae, 2012
This morning we had freezing rain and I headed out to photograph the same seed heads in my garden that I’ve been documenting over the fall. As the day wore on and the temperature crept over the freezing mark the ice started to change, and then things really started to look interesting. The transitions in nature are just so fascinating.
If you are interested in the seed head series you can see it here, and there is more iced flora here.
© Karen McRae, 2012
Reflections and compositions in a partially frozen pond. The last couple of days have been mild so there is a watery surface on the ice.
© Karen McRae, 2012
Our temporary “summer” has been replaced by more normal seasonal temperatures.
A windy breath of -10° c overnight drove the waves and spray up on to the sloped shore of this bay resulting in a strange and magical landscape when I came upon it yesterday. Not that long ago the ice fishing huts resided in this wide bay.
The perfectly ice-upholstered and fringed rocks along the shore.
Surreal spaces…
Although this place is quite removed from the city and looks idyllic and peaceful there is a strange juxtaposition of bird song and intermittent rapid gunfire from the nearby rifle range. It all feels rather surreal as I wade through the water in high rubber boots; a strange shore bird among chandelier skirted trees.
Shirley’s Bay, Ottawa River
All images © Karen McRae
This is what it looks like walking out to the breakwater. A still quiet morning with the only sounds being a gentle hum of the slightly removed city and the many birds. Misty water and muted colours.
As you walk further out to the boulders another quiet sound becomes apparent. The sound of what is left of the ice gently coming apart as it sways onto the rocky edge of the breakwater. A scattering of pops and cracks. It has turned into candle ice, columns of ice perpendicular to the surface of the water that easily break apart from each other. There is some pushed onto the shoreline and I pick it up and listen to it fall back into the water and onto the rocks. A sound like tinkling glass. A sound, I think to myself, that will not last the day.
The last few sheets of ice are melting quickly in the warmth and moving slowly towards the rapids just downstream. It has been a quick melt.
I am standing on the large limestone boulders that make up the breakwater. In stark contrast to the fleeting ice they are ancient and enduring. They are also generously scattered with visible fossils. Fossils that are of Ordovician origin, which makes them somewhere around 450 million years old!
I only know this because I have had a collaborator for this post. Paleontologist Graham Young and author of the excellent blog Ancient Shore very kindly identified the fossils I photographed along the breakwater. Graham is Curator of Geology and Paleontology at the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg.
These appear to be rounded bryozoan colonies that have been broken open. Bryozoans are aquatic invertebrate animals that live on the seafloor.
Branching bryozoans are mixed up with a lot of other debris, including echinoderm stem segments, probably from crinoids or sea lilies (these are the little donut-shaped fossils)
The shells are rhynchonelliformean brachiopods (lamp shells)
More bryozoans, again in a bed of mixed fossil debris.
I’m not sure about this circular structure; it is probably a badly preserved bryozoan.
These appear to be burrow structures (trace fossils), which stand out because they are better cemented than the surrounding muddy material. They would have formed as burrows in the seafloor, perhaps made by arthropods.
A large batch of bryozoans. These are very neat because they have been “nested” together, possibly as a result of movement by currents after death.
A large straight cephalopod, related to the chambered nautilus. Imagine a nautilus that has its shell stretched out, rather than coiled.
A glance back.
* Fossil descriptions by Graham Young with some editing by me.
Thank you Graham!
www.ancientshore.com
All images © Karen McRae
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Parting shot: Two geese in a fog…need I say more…?
All images © Karen McRae
In my mind I am here, on the breakwater. The lonesome sound of seagulls overhead, thick fog and the early promise of a warm day. Shades of grey enveloping me like an old friend. A thermos of coffee beside me and ancient boulders beneath. Connected.
All images © Karen McRae
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