January 13th.  Thirty-two degrees.  Heavy rain and 60 degree temps yesterday melted all the snow and left much open water at the marsh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cells inside a fallen White-faced Hornet nest.

 

 

 

Lots of water flowing at Grayville Falls.

 

 

 

 

 

Long exposure.

 

Shorter exposure.

 

January 17th.  Sticky snow this morning.  Thankfully not much of it and temps right around 32 degrees.

 

Sow bug, pill bug, roly-poly, woodlouse and well over a dozen more common names, it's still a Terrestrial Isopod: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodlouse

 

Not unusual to see insects, spiders, and the occasional isopod atop snow when temps are at or just above freezing.

 

An Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) had hopped by recently.

 

 

 

 

 

An old beaver lodge, grown up with "planted"shrubs of what was once a food cache.  The process of the shrubs growing up as an abandoned lodge gradually sinks, reminds me of Charles Darwin's 1842 publication of his prescient study of coral reef atoll formation around oceanic volcanos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_and_Distribution_of_Coral_Reefs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think these vines are of Carrion Flower (Smilax herbacea).

 

 

 

 

 

Active beaver lodge and food cache on the channel side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

January 18th.  Fourteen degrees.  A bit of a sunrise near Route 85 as I started out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contrails in the frigid air aloft.