#2058 "Sunset Pink Snow"

From January 17th, 2018...

It was snowing at Singleton Lake. The trailing western edge of the altostratus that was dropping the flakes was already over the western edge of the lake. The clearing skies dominated the west horizon. The colours were on fire. There were some very subtle cumulus elements in the lower deck of stratocumulus and I included them. There is another painting across the lake every day at sunset. It is okay to paint the pink snow but I would suggest that you never eat it...

Winter wild life made good use of the opening in the sheet of ice at Jim Day Rapids. The little tongue of orange on the lower edge of the painting is open water reflecting the orange sky on the horizon. The otters seemed to think of the open rapids as their own. We watched them chase some trumpeter swans away. The swans returned to feed and rest so the wild life must have worked out some mutually beneficial agreement. In the one image below the otter was nipping at the webbed feet of the swans as they beat their wings just enough to gain the safety of the ice shelf. In the following image the otter had poked its head up through one of the many holes in the ice and was surveying the presence of the swans after it had chased them out of the open pool of the rapids.