The weather was clear and cold today, every branch and withered leaf covered in delicate frost crystals. Patches illuminated by the low golden winter sun seemed to be set alight, like on fire with bright orange tones, while the shadows kept their blue silver hues, setting beautiful contrasts.
I captured them with my camera to be able to share the beauty of this winter walk with you, enjoy!
Where we live in Sweden the sun only barely reaches over the treeline of the forest in the winter. The days can be long and dark, but when the sun is out the light becomes so amazingly golden!
This Mullein plant grows in the middle of an unpaved road and is fully covered in ice crystals. Mullein has healing properties and is, amongst other things, used against colds. The leaves are usually slighty grey and very fluffy.
Ice crystals sparkling in the sunlight are just so beautiful and the crunching sounds when walking over a frozen meadow is music to my ears.
This wilted birch leaf seemed so eerily alive with how the sunlight made it shine bright orange. It is surrounded by frozen blueberry bushes, there are soooo many blueberries in this forest in the summer!
Some blueberry bushes still had their green leaves, amongst them grow heather plants and so much cushiony moss. The light green one, reindeer lichen (not actually a moss), is the only thing reindeers eat, or so I have been told. It even gets exported from Lappland, the most northern part of Sweden, to feed reindeers held in other parts of the world.
My favourite shots from the winter walk were these heather plants covered in ice crystals, they sparkled so gorgeously in multiple colours!
A closeup shot of the heather plants. I love the contrast beween the golden sunlight and the more icey blue shadow areas.
These grass straws covered in ice crystals, bent in this peculiar triangular shape caught my eye.
(Sidenote: I had to squat a lot for all these pictures, I hope I won't have muscle burn tomorrow. ;P)
Many areas in the forest are covered by long wilted grass like this, to me it seems to flow like waves, nature is just so magnificent!
This piece of wood and the leaves seemed like a piece of art placed amongst the frozen moss on the ground. I only discovered the little dead spider when checking through the photos on the big screen at home. I wonder if he is the artist?
I have to say, the Swedes are not particularly creative with names, this stream is called Lilån, which translates to "little river". Its very dark reddish water originates from all the minerals in the ground, there used to be a lot of iron mines in these parts. I enjoy the contrast of the dark water and the bright hair-like grass on the river bank.
Ice art by mother nature, illuminated by the golden winter sun.
Another shot from Lilåns river bank. The long grass was swaying gracefully in the wind and seemed to have a fire coming from within due to the sunlight.
Like in the picture above the grass and tree tops seem to be on fire from the light. Birches are my favourite trees. The first to have light green leaves in spring, gorgeous throughout summer, bright golden in autumn and pure black and white elegance in winter.
A forest made of ice, it's truely astonishing how many different shapes you see in these icey patches. You just have to look closely.
A burning maple leaf crown caught my eye on the side of the road.
Icey wings drawn by winter.
Or more abstract geometrical shapes formed by the ice.
Stars that grew around grass straws.
And a pentagonal hole in the ice.
I took so many more photos than these but I can't continue this blog post forever, I hope you enjoyed your trip alongside me for this winter walk.
Fingers crossed for a follow up with some snow pictures. Sadly snow has been scarce so far this year, but winter is still long and hopefully keeps being frosty up here in the cold harsh north. ;)
See you around for another walk some time soon!
Best regards,
Bernadette