Photos: Savanna
These pictures show the road and the savanna.
Looking south along the road, you can see a few puddles as the snow and ice begin to melt in the sun.
Looking southwest, the farm is pretty meh in this light, but this picture really shows off the texture of the fields glittering under a sheet of snow.
Looking northwest, this farm stands on a white expanse of snow under a pale blue winter sky.
Looking north along the road, a lot of the surface is showing through.
Just inside the yard, the snow forms faint lines and waves from where the wind was blowing it around.
This cute little snowball came from a chunk of snow that I kicked up beside my tracks on January 6. Sun and wind have completely eroded its sharp edges, turning it into a ball. When assessing the age of tracks, look at clumps thrown up around them and check for sharp or smoothed edges. The rounder they are, the older they are.
A single blade of grass arches above the sparkling snow.
Now here's something I hardly ever see anymore: subnivean sign. Those little raised areas with cracks show that something -- probably a vole, possibly a mouse or something else -- has been tunneling through the subnivium (environment under the snow). It's rare now because this part of central Illinois has gone from Zone 5b to 6a and is now bordering on 6b. 0_o So there's little snow cover anymore, which can make it hard on wildlife that used to depend on the subnivium.
This is a larger bump over the snow tunnel. Bumps with cracks indicate that the snow had stopped falling and blowing, and begun to stabilize, when subnivial activity pushed up and cracked the nascent crust while it was still relatively soft.
Blades of grass arch over the snow, holding their last few seeds.
This is one of the oak seedlings in the memorial grove. The snow completely covers both the milk jug and the blanket of leaf mulch.
Wait, what's this? Sawdust? And wood chips? Everywhere, all around the maple tree between the savanna and the prairie garden.
Aha! A woodpecker has been drilling into the rotten top of the tree. Whenever you see wood chips and sawdust under a tree, look up and search for a woodpecker hole. Here we have mostly downy woodpeckers, but recently I saw a northern flicker.
Bird tracks form a heart-shaped trail around the base of one of the mulberry trees. Because the tracks alternate instead of appearing in pairs, they belong to a walking bird rather than a hopping bird, likely a mourning dove.
Looking south along the road, you can see a few puddles as the snow and ice begin to melt in the sun.
Looking southwest, the farm is pretty meh in this light, but this picture really shows off the texture of the fields glittering under a sheet of snow.
Looking northwest, this farm stands on a white expanse of snow under a pale blue winter sky.
Looking north along the road, a lot of the surface is showing through.
Just inside the yard, the snow forms faint lines and waves from where the wind was blowing it around.
This cute little snowball came from a chunk of snow that I kicked up beside my tracks on January 6. Sun and wind have completely eroded its sharp edges, turning it into a ball. When assessing the age of tracks, look at clumps thrown up around them and check for sharp or smoothed edges. The rounder they are, the older they are.
A single blade of grass arches above the sparkling snow.
Now here's something I hardly ever see anymore: subnivean sign. Those little raised areas with cracks show that something -- probably a vole, possibly a mouse or something else -- has been tunneling through the subnivium (environment under the snow). It's rare now because this part of central Illinois has gone from Zone 5b to 6a and is now bordering on 6b. 0_o So there's little snow cover anymore, which can make it hard on wildlife that used to depend on the subnivium.
This is a larger bump over the snow tunnel. Bumps with cracks indicate that the snow had stopped falling and blowing, and begun to stabilize, when subnivial activity pushed up and cracked the nascent crust while it was still relatively soft.
Blades of grass arch over the snow, holding their last few seeds.
This is one of the oak seedlings in the memorial grove. The snow completely covers both the milk jug and the blanket of leaf mulch.
Wait, what's this? Sawdust? And wood chips? Everywhere, all around the maple tree between the savanna and the prairie garden.
Aha! A woodpecker has been drilling into the rotten top of the tree. Whenever you see wood chips and sawdust under a tree, look up and search for a woodpecker hole. Here we have mostly downy woodpeckers, but recently I saw a northern flicker.
Bird tracks form a heart-shaped trail around the base of one of the mulberry trees. Because the tracks alternate instead of appearing in pairs, they belong to a walking bird rather than a hopping bird, likely a mourning dove.
