Nature Photos

December 23, 2008

 

Happy Holiday Season!

Each year, I like to feature photos of wildlife and landscapes that remind us of the holiday season and the beauty that the white snows of winter bring. I trust that you will enjoy the photos, find pleasure in this classic poem by Yeats, and have a wonderfully happy holiday season with friends and family.

Andy and Priscilla

CT Audubon EcoTravel

 

THE WHITE BIRDS

by: W.B. Yeats

WOULD that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!

We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee;

And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky,

Has awakened in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.

 

A weariness comes from those dreamers, dew-dabbled, the lily and rose;

Ah, dream not of them, my beloved, the flame of the meteor that goes,

Or the flame of the blue star that lingers hung low in the fall of the dew:

For I would we were changed to white birds on the wandering foam: I and you!

 

I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a Danaan shore,

Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more;

Soon far from the rose and the lily, and fret of the flames would we be,

Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea!

White-tailed Tropicbird

 

Red-billed Tropicbird

 

Snow-covered mountains

 

Ice formations

 

Snow Goose

 

Northern Cardinal

 

Ice-covered berries

 

Ordinary hexagonal snowflake, highly magnified by a low-temperature

scanning electron microscope. This version has been artificially

colorized to emphasize the central flake.