If you’re gonna have an ice storm, this is the kind to have. The temps have dropped below freezing for about 12 hours now, and the light rain that moved in coated everything with the barest shimmer of sparkle.
While the ferry shut down early last night for the safety of the crew, it’s up and running again this morning. Check out that frozen marsh grass:
When you drive around, the ice has made the palm fronds and the pine branches heavy, and there’s a gentle clatter as they rustle against each other. The seeds of yaupon, wax myrtle, smilax and sea oxeye daisy all sport slight coats of ice.
In the red cedars, the webs of bowl and doily spiders have created little frost hammocks sparkling in the branches.
Shorebirds huddle together for warmth at the corner in the shallows. At the edges, a congregation of egrets blurs into a bowl of spoonbills, all hunched and fluffed against the cold.
Some birds have ventured forth for food. Our nesting eagle sits amid the icy sticks while her mate consumes a fish at the edge of the marsh.
A female cardinal sits within the frozen wax myrtle berries, cracking through them with her strong bill.
A northern mockingbird regards us warily, fluffs his feathers and then hops down to grab an insect from the grass before resuming his lookout spot.
We don’t get freezing weather often~ the last big wintry event was the big freeze and snow/ice of January 2018. That one (although pretty magical) had such cold temps for so long that it did some real damage, and we’re glad to see we won’t have to contend with days of below freezing weather. We also had ice in January of 2014.
On a practical note for island residents, we installed a Moen Flo on our water several weeks ago, and we did get alerts when the water temperatures approached freezing.
