Earlier in the week, the cold -17 deg F morning air was evident by the extreme air inversion that lay over the Butte "flats" (i.e. the town below the Butte Hill):
The cold air brought a large flock (about 200 birds!) of Cedar Waxwings to our backyard, where they cleaned off the berries from our Mountain Ash trees in just minutes:
A view of the Pintler Range (taken from the "Mt Haggin" cross country ski area) shows snow blowing off the high peaks:
We don't spend all of our time outside here in southwest Montana. At my little college, PhD candidate Stacie Barry (I guess that's Doctor Barry now!) successfully defended her doctoral thesis, "COMING TO THE SURFACE: Environment, Health, and Culture in Butte, Montana:
One evening, we attended the American Civil Liberties Union gathering at Hotel Finlen, an opulent place recently renovated as a reminder of Butte's origins as America's "Copperopolis":
Hope my Northern Hemisphere friends enjoy these short days and the upcoming lunar eclipse!
11 comments:
Beautiful views.
Such beautiful and familiar looking scenes and skies! I do love your captures! Hope you have a great weekend! Stay warm!
Sylvia
Certainly a grandiloquent hotel but the old barn and dear Molly are more up my alley.
PS not just the northern hemisphere is looking forward to the eclipse tonight, we down under have our alarms set and hope for a clear sky.
I love the first photo - Molly, the horse barn, and the moon all make for a perfect combination!
Happy holidays to you and yours Pat. We're leaving the tundra here for Arizona and the Grands. Will be back online 2012.
Glad that you have snow, since you enjoy it. We still have green grass!
That sure doensn't look like a Motel 6!
very year I am startled anew by how early you are into full-on winter.
I'd probably do a happy little dance if I saw 200 waxwings in the same place. They are a species that I find very striking. It is fun to watch them eat berries, so I can only imagine the effect magnified that many times. Lovely photos all around. Have a wonderful day!
Gorgeous pictures! The first one is so beautifully composed, made me feel I was in the picture too.
Molly seems to be enjoying the snow in the sub zero environment.
You are lucky to have such exotic cedar waxwings visiting your back yard - not withstanding your berries being wiped out! I have never heard about these birds before.
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