Winter has arrived

Well the freezing weather and snow has arrived.
The cold weather that hit Seattle recently has gotten so cold, I was concerned about the filter freezing over and the ceramic container breaking. I had recently turned off the filter heater and this cold snap was enough to make me turn it back on. At these temperatures, it is not strong enough to raise the water temp too much, just enough to keep the filter and the pond from freezing over.




The water stays cold enough to freeze on the screen, making some very nice icicles. The fish are visible and moving around in the water. At these temperatures, they are sensitive to noise and harassment. The fish sometimes even lay down and sleep. I have thought more than once that one of them was dead, but the fish were just sleeping.

The screen fills up with snow as well which makes for some nice photos.




Notes for Photographers: When photographing in snowy times like this, sometimes you need to modify the photos with software. I use Picasa from google (Google.com). It allows me to lighten the photographs to compensate for the cloudy, snowy weather. Picasa allows for many more, quite complex types of improvements to the digital photos. And it is available for a nice price... Free.