ice | The Prairie Ecologist

The weather has been extraordinarily warm for the last couple weeks, but it’s finally getting colder. While I’ve enjoyed getting outside to play soccer and other outdoor recreation activities, I’m also looking forward to seeing some ice again. A little snow wouldn’t hurt my feelings either. It’s been a pretty brown winter so far.

In the meantime, here are a few ice photos from a couple weeks ago, just as the last vestiges of ice were disappearing from the edge of a Platte River wetland. Let’s hope they aren’t the last ice photos of the winter…

Frozen wetland plants and bubbles near the edge of a frozen, but melting wetland.

A frozen rush embedded in ice.

Ice and wetland rushes/grasses on the edge of a wetland. The Nature Conservancy's Platte River Prairies, Nebraska.

Patterns of ice bubbles and wetland plants.

And before you say it, yes, I recognize the delicious irony of yearning for more winter in this post exactly a week after a post in which I yearned for spring so I could photograph flowers. What I can I say? I like flowers, but I also like ice…

I’ve finally gotten through all the survey responses many of you provided over the last couple weeks, including all of the open-ended comments from the last two questions. Again, I really appreciate everyone who took the time to take that survey, and I am especially grateful for all your constructive and thoughtful suggestions.

Earlier this week, I shared a close-up photo of ice melting along the edge of a stream, and promised more. Here they are. One of the joys of close-up photography is the chance to capture intricate beauty from unexpected places. In this case, I never would have stopped to look at this half-frozen muddy stream beneath a concrete highway bridge if I hadn’t been looking for photographic opportunities. Even then, it took me a lot of trial and error before I ended up with any images I really liked. Notwithstanding my wet, cold, and muddy pants and some suspicious glances from passersby, I’m really glad I took the time.