Hoar frost days ❄️

West Sussex, January 2025

One of the nice things about not living in a city is that you get to see hoar frost. I know this because I’ve spent most of my life in cities where the ‘heat island effect’ usually won’t allow for hoar frost to really develop during daylight hours.

Bramble leaves make it through the winter, providing a good platform for these frost spikes.

This thick frost covers the trees and hedges, everything vegetative really, in a thin veil of icing. The puddles become milky ice clouds.

After a very dark, grey and damp December, these blue skies and frosty landscapes have been welcome relief.

Not a great time to sit on a bench though.

This is a reed with a coating of frost.

Remarkably this oak tree still holds its leaves, which is unusual outside of cities in January. I have known deciduous oaks to hold leaves into January in London.

I always seek them out in this weather, especially with a little bit of backlighting. This is quite a heavy crop so the sharpness is lessened a bit. You probably don’t care.

That distant landscape is actually an equestrian estate. It is chewed to within an inch of its life, hence the black sticks of trees, compared to the rough grassland where I stood to take the photo.

Thanks for reading.