Oshawa Harbour & Lynde Shores CAJanuary 14th, 2014

I had cabin fever today so I grabbed my camera and went down to the harbour & over to Lynde Shores. The ice in the harbour was interesting. After the breakup I assume the wind & currents jostled the ice chunks around to form these islands of ice & snow.

I thought they looked like puffy cumulus clouds. Jane thinks they look like white donuts.

The female looks curious as to what I'm up to... the males could care less.

The ice storm brought down 1000s of trees & branches. It gives us a chance to see inside a "live" tree. The rusty-colored section of this birch is the inner bark... a corky layer.

The boardwalk at Lynde Shores (enhanced)

A "winter" fungus and some lichen.

Birch trees have a real affinity for fungi--especially Tinder Conk. The color of it varies from grey to jet-black. We see grey & black in our area. I like the common names: Hoof Fungus & Iceman Fungus.

I tried using it as tinder last year--at least the initial stage. I lit it, and it smouldered for well over an hour. With some light tinder, I'm sure it would have started a fire.

A Red Oak leaf entombed in ice.

Another one, trying to resist a similar fate.

A couple women brought a pail of seeds for the ducks & geese. I shot a 10-second movie clip of the Mallards gobbling them up.

I'm experimenting with this clip. I converted it to a format for the iPhone (and maybe other makes too?). If any of you are looking at this post on an iPhone, or some other make of smart phone, maybe you could let me know if it works. I'm not sure if the software I used does a good job or not. 

Either should work on a desktop, laptop or tablet.

 

This first one is m4v format--it's sharper than the one below so hopefully this one works on smart phones.

And this one is 3gp--blurry and pixelated, even at the small size it is on a regular computer.

So if you're on a smart phone viewing these, please let me know if either work for you--and what brand your phone is too.

The outing dispelled my cabin fever, so I returned to our winter cave.

- fini -