Went walking in the snow today

Thwack

About 25 miles northwest of Yosemite, along Hwy 120, is the little town of Groveland. You can rent a place near there in a gated area called Pine Mountain Lake. They advertise it as, "Above the fog and below the snow."

Except today, we had snow, we had fog…and we didn't have electricity. So, I went for a walk with my camera instead:


The view from our driveway (which slopes down fairly steeply):




You can see the snow's depth on the railing on the left side of the picture. You can't see the thin layer of ice under the snow that kept me from trying to drive down said driveway today.



My neighbor has a Golden Delicious apple tree that the deer love to frequent in the Fall. But today, the fruit was frozen, not fresh:





There's a beach nearby but I don't think swimming would be a good idea right now:





I don't think I'll get much fishing done today off this dock either:





The local water fowl didn't see very happy with the weather…they were squawking something awful as they flew by:





Late in the day, several large flocks of Robins showed up. Apparently, they got a late start on their commute south for the winter. None of them seemed very happy about having to perch amongst the snow and ice:

gecko0

Nice series! The robin is my state's official bird...it's funny to see so many together. We only see them paired off here or on their own. I can imagine they don't like the cold!

Thwack

There were tons of Robins flying around. Every time they'd land, snow would get shaken loose and birds lower on the tree would fly off grumbling. It was getting a bit comical to watch.

Usually, we get huge numbers of them in the Spring. They like the oak trees but tend to land deep enough into the trees that you can't get a shot of how many there are.

I liked the way their colors stood out against the snow. Definitely not good camo to hide from predators.