Winter color in Stony Brook Reservation
Yesterday the predicted 4 inches of snow was nowhere to be found. Light flakes melted as the struck the warm ground, and it was actually quite pleasant to be outside. I'm actually too nervous, almost superstitious, to say that I'm happy about this winter's weather--it seems partly like tempting fate and partly like celebrating the good side of something really awful.
But the weather made for a dark but attractive palette. The reddish browns of the leaf litter and the greens of the mosses and lichens were damp and unusually vibrant.
Melted snowflakes cling as microdroplets to the heads of the moss sporangia.
A little stream reflects the steel color of the snowy sky.
Turkey tails and old ferns are still beautiful when they're dead.
These "false" turkey tails (Stereum ostrea) are fresh and vibrant!
Damp and cool but not freezing is perfect weather for Exidia recisa. The big lichen is probably green tree shield, while the smaller one (looks like round greenish stains on the bark) is unknown to me.
A white pine sapling glitters with damp decoration.
I set the self-timer for a long exposure, so you could see the snow falling. You can't, but you can see that we were there.