Early yesterday morning, my car’s windshield was covered with starbursts of frost. As I sat in the driver’s seat, I had this magical view of the Christmas lights on my neighbor’s house. I captured the moment with my iPhone—then I cleared the windshield.
Today is the day of the solstice, the day that some of us in the Northern Hemisphere count as the first day of winter. According to the Farmer’s Almanac, “It’s the astronomical moment when the Sun reaches the Tropic of Capricorn, we have our shortest day and longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere in terms of daylight.” Like much of the United States, we are in for a spell of frigid weather, though I doubt that we will see any snow before Christmas.
It felt appropriate to mark this day with this frosty image. I was preparing to head out to my favorite Wildlife Refuge yesterday morning when I took this shot and will be featuring some of the birds that I encountered once I have finished reviewing my shots.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
I absolutely and totally adore this image Mike! Am hoping to get permission to do a Christmas post featuring another person’s poem and if that comes off (fingers crossed) then may I use your photo to head my post? Merry Christmas, Mike! ~Liz
Thanks, Liz. You are definitely welcome to use the photo. It was such a fun, creative photo to take, not at all like my “typical” wildlife photos. I think that my eyes are pretty well trained by now to “see” photos in my mind before I take them. In this case, the image came out pretty much as I had imagined.
What a fabulous image.
Thanks, Laura. This was a spontaneous image prompted simply by what I saw and imagined. It definitely was worth stopping and taking a few extra seconds before starting the car. 🙂