I don’t get tired of seeing ice. If you do, this post may not be for you! We have lots of the stuff and I love to watch how it evolves as conditions change.

I made these photographs last week in Middlesex. The temperatures had been in the teens for a couple days, promoting more freezing, and we’d not yet gotten our big dump of snow. I encourage you to click on each photo to see it in a larger format.

And, if you have ice nearby today, even on a puddle or a birdbath, take a few minutes to see what it really looks like; for those of you in warm climes, you could actually put a bowl of water in the freezer if you wanted to! Regardless, enjoy either these photos or the real world or both.

At a quiet bend in the stream two kinds of ice meet. The shore ice on the bottom had formed several days prior and the main flow ice on the top formed as it finally got colder.

Air bubbles have formed under the ice in places…

…but in others the thin ice is still clear, almost acting like a magnifying glass for the stony bottom of the stream.

Another variable is how the light reflects off the ice itself. In this case it is a fairly strongly lit, overcast sky. As my angle of viewing changes it reveals the patterns of ice crystals not otherwise obvious.

This ice had changed so much over a two-week period. It was now disconnected from the water and much of it had evaporated—sublimated—leaving needle-like shards in intricate patterns.[gallery type="rectangular" ids="3392,3369"]