Two mounds of snow in Great Hills Park on February 16th
The top mound was surrounded partly, and the bottom one fully,
by ice that had formed when water in the park’s main creek froze.
© 2021 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers
Perspectives on Nature Photography
Search on this site:
Copyright Notice
Information
- A way to purchase a print
- About Me
- About My Equipment
- About My Techniques
- About This Column
- Books About Texas Plants
- Some highlights
Top Posts & Pages
Recent Posts
- Tiny damselfly
- Time for rosinweed
- Ripple reflections on Bull Creek cliff
- Buttonbush budding
- Green milkweed pods
- Acmella repens
- A monumental mountain pink colony at Belton Lake
- Striped hairy belly bee
- Rising skyward
- Looking up at composite architecture
- Redwing blackbird
- Pickerelweed flourishing
- A blowing stack of black-eyed susans
- Bluebell time
- Yet another change of pace
- Pink and blue and a change of pace
Calendar of Posts
Archives
Native Plants
- Botanical Research Institute of Texas
- Central Texas Native Plants
- Foraging Texas
- Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
- Native Plant Discussion Group
- Native Plant Society of Texas
- Native Prairies Association of Texas
- Texas Native Shrubs
- Texas Native Trees
- Texas Wildbuds
- Texas Wildflower Sightings
Nature Photographers
- Adam Burton
- Alpenglow Images
- Andrew McLachlan
- Art Wolfe
- Charles Cramer
- Darwin Wiggett
- Dreamscapes
- Gary Crabbe
- Gary Hart
- Guy Tal
- John O'Connor
- Lightscapes Nature Photography
- Luke Austin
- Mark Berkery
- Mark Graf
- Mike MacDonald
- MJF Images
- Nature and Photography
- Nature Diary
- Nature in Focus
- Nature's Place
- oopoomoo
- Philip Colla
- Robert Thompson
- Serge Tollari
- Stephen Gingold's Nature Photography Blog
- Time Catcher
- Tom Whelan
- Tony Middleton
- WhyTake
- William Neill
Texas Nature Photography
- Gary Regner
- Laurence Parent
- Richard Reynolds
- Serious Amateur Photography
- Texas Parks and Wildlife
- Texas Wild Buds
Portraits of Wildflowers 
Those two light patches in the second mound look to me like eyes, above a slightly down-turned mouth (the darker curve just below the ‘eye’ on the right.) It gives the mound a slightly wistful look, as though it were wishing it was as perfectly formed as the one in the first image.
shoreacres
February 22, 2021 at 7:54 AM
So you faced up to your inner pareidolia. Speaking of wishing: a while ago I looked out the window at a now-completely-bereft-of-snow-and-ice Austin, and in spite of the ordeal we’d gone through, I was sorry to see the white gone so soon. Such a white wonderland isn’t likely to come my way ever again, at least not here.
Steve Schwartzman
February 22, 2021 at 8:00 AM
By the way, I don’t know what made the two “eyes” in the second mound. It might have been drops of water or bits of ice falling from the trees above. A few smaller depressions appear atop the mound in the first picture.
Steve Schwartzman
February 22, 2021 at 8:04 AM
What an interesting phenomenon. It looks as though someone took a clump of snow and just dropped it on top.
Birder's Journey
February 22, 2021 at 8:22 AM
Yes, it does have that look, and yet the accumulation was natural. The first one seems so like a bell.
Steve Schwartzman
February 22, 2021 at 8:44 AM
The snow mound looks like a snow covered flying saucer. 🙂
Lavinia Ross
February 22, 2021 at 1:00 PM
That’s a good one. It does look flying-saucer-y. It never took off while I was within sight of it.
Steve Schwartzman
February 22, 2021 at 1:08 PM
In our neighborhood, someone built an igloo! It was so cute. Love your shots, but I think I once saw something on Star Trek that looked like your snow blobs!
Tina
February 22, 2021 at 3:42 PM
Now, if you thought you’d seen me on Star Trek, that would really have been something.
An igloo seems appropriate, given the dominant iciness of the frozen precipitation. After the January 10th snowfall a bunch of families on my street made snowmen; in contrast, this past week I didn’t see anyone here build anything.
Steve Schwartzman
February 22, 2021 at 4:14 PM
The first looks like a flying saucer. Ha! I see Lavinia saw the same thing.
Steve Gingold
February 22, 2021 at 6:09 PM
Yes, you and she are both flying high.
Steve Schwartzman
February 22, 2021 at 6:31 PM
As you have previously mentioned, it’s not often that you get to revel in snow in Austin!
tanjabrittonwriter
February 24, 2021 at 4:16 PM
And revel I did. I kept so busy that I didn’t even feel cold.
Steve Schwartzman
February 24, 2021 at 4:18 PM
That’s better than having suffered frostbite or hypothermia!
tanjabrittonwriter
February 24, 2021 at 5:35 PM
Definitely. I was well prepared, including triple socks inside my rubber boots, four layers of clothing on my upper body, gloves, and a padded hood.
Steve Schwartzman
February 24, 2021 at 6:00 PM
Well done, Steve. 🙂
tanjabrittonwriter
February 24, 2021 at 6:10 PM
Ein guter Mensch, in seinem dunklen Drange,
Ist sich des rechten Weges wohl bewusst.
— Goethe; Faust, Part I.
Steve Schwartzman
February 25, 2021 at 7:53 AM
One wonders if he had winter preparedness in mind, but the words are applicable to many different situations… 🙂
tanjabrittonwriter
February 25, 2021 at 12:16 PM
I doubt Goethe had severe winter weather in mind here, but when I came across the lines they seemed to fit the situation.
Steve Schwartzman
February 25, 2021 at 12:56 PM