Steve`s Country
For a smile as wide as a country sunrise
Art In Nature #4.
Hi everyone and welcome back to Art In Nature again today! It is such a beautiful, sunny day, yet so cold. That sun shines it’s beautiful rays all across the landscape making every part sparkle with so much beauty. But it’s not really a day you want to be outside. Personally on days like this I prefer to be on the inside looking out at the wondrous beauty of winter. That way I can stay warm and safe. Anyway, back to art in nature…of course the sun is part of that and helps to really make things stand out in a beautiful way. Like the featured image at the top, the way the snow is curved on the rock right at the water’s edge and then reflected in the water, perfect art in nature.
And then in the picture above we have the remnants of ice fog that deposited these beautiful flakes of heavy frost on top of the snow. And the sun shining on them really makes them sparkle! But art in nature can be found anywhere and any time of the year.
Like in the picture above where we have this grass, and some other plants, growing right out of cracks in the rock. The main clump of grass does have some sand in the bottom of it’s crack in the rock, but there isn’t much. But it stays beautifully green and healthy with it’s roots undoubtedly going right down into that river to drink all the water it needs to grow.
Our last photo just above shows the remnants of a plant from the previous year as this photo was taken in early spring with the river as the background. But even a single dried up flower stem like this has it’s own beauty which stands out so nicely as it sits by itself with the sun casting it’s light on it. There is so much beauty in nature all around us, we should always take time to stop and enjoy it for a while. Well, I hope you enjoyed the photos today. I hope you all have a nice sunny day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Coffee At Steve’s Country #26. Black-capped Chickadee.
Good morning everyone! Come in out of the cold, grab some nice hot coffee, or tea, and relax with Muffin and I for a few minutes. Well, they said it was going to be colder last night, but they were wrong, the temp is the same. Which means it’s cold, very cold, with a temp of -29C (-22F) and with the wind factored in the temp is actually -36C (-32F). That part is a slight improvement over yesterday, though when temps get that cold, 4 or 5 degrees is just not noticeable. Our high temp for the day yesterday was -21C (-6F).
I know many of you are unfamiliar with such temps, and believe me, you don’t want to feel them either. It is just unbelievably cold. It’s amazing my little bird friends can survive such temps, like my favorite, the black-capped chickadee. They are small, only 5 to 6 inches (12-15cm) from bill to tip of their tail and 2 to 2 and a half inches (5 to 5.5cm) is the tail. In this cold their hide their legs and feet under their feathers as often as possible, actually all birds up here in the north will do that.
These birds don’t build up fat like many other bird species, to help them through the winter, so they need to eat constantly all day long. But our nights are much longer than the day so how do they survive? During the day they will build up a bit of fat from their food to help them, but at night they drop their body temp from 108F during the day to only 86F at night. That lowers their rate of metabolism by 25%, which helps them survive the long, cold nights.
In winter they form loose flocks and travel together looking for food. At night they roost in dense evergreen groves, like spruce and balsam. They are the most common bird in Canada and are found from coast to coast within the tree line. They are also found through much of the northern half of the US. They number in the millions and are one of the most important pest exterminators in the forest. During the summer, 80-90% of their diet is insects, mostly harmful types, and about 50% in the winter. They find frozen insects that have hidden behind bark of trees for the winter. Plus they eat seeds in winter. They are also one of the most common birds at feeders in winter. They sing their name in such a way that it that it cheers the cold winter landscape. There is so much more I could say about these favorite little birds of mine, but I’ll stop there. I hope you like the chickadee pics as well. Have a wonderful day and God bless!
Steve and Muffin.
©2021 Steve McLeod.
Steve`s Country 