SKY BEAUTIES

      The sky has several beauties, day and night,  through the year, but particularly in winter when the atmosphere is often dry.  And the sky provides much entertainment to anyone who will look for it.  

     The brilliant glows of winter sunrises and sunsets are especially striking.  But their reds, oranges and yellows add false warmth to the sky.  Part of the beauty of winter sunrises and sunsets is how they color the edges of dark clouds, and handsomely silhouette black trees and tall weeds and grasses.  Noisy flocks of airborne swans, geese and ducks, racing across the sky, or spiraling down to impoundments or feeding fields, are also beautifully silhouetted black before brilliant sunrises and sunsets, creating inspiring scenes.

     Large, cottony, white and gray cumulus clouds are lovely in themselves, and in the way they enhance blue skies.  Their whiteness highlights soaring hawks and vultures, and the flights of other kinds of larger birds.  Sometimes, stacked-up cumulus clouds appear like snow-covered mountains in the distance.  

     Rainbow's bright colors in an arc, across part of the sky during or after a rainfall, are always exciting to see.  Part of the intrigue of rainbows is they are not an everyday occurrence.  And then there is that legend of a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.  

     The rising moon is always a grand beauty and thrill, especially when it "rises" yellow behind a stand of tall trees, beautifully silhouetting them black.  Moonlight is most wonderful to experience when reflected off snow-covered ground, making landscapes almost as bright as day.  Moonlight on snow-covered fields is particularly delightful when I see groups of elegant white-tailed deer silhouetted beautifully before the illuminated snow.  Woods in moonlight are especially intriguing when I hear the thrilling hooting of great horned owls coming from the depths of them.  And moonlight creates yellow paths across the ice of impoundments, streaks that waterfowl sometimes walk through.

     Stars and planets spangle clear skies with their white lights.  It's interesting to know that the light from those heavenly bodies was created long before we see it in the night sky.  To see light from stars is to look deep into the past.  And it's intriguing to many people to see the constellations created by the distant stars. 

     Lightning is scary, but thrilling to people who enjoy seeing it during storms.  Lightning is created by charged, greatly-heated particles in the air rushing through Earth's atmosphere with great force.  Air quickly tumbling back into those cleared paths caused by lightning creates the thunder we hear.

     The shimmering, dancing and beautiful, greenish lights of northern lights, or aurora borealis, is thrilling to watch during winter nights around both poles on Earth.  They are caused by charged particles from the sun striking gas in Earth's upper atmosphere.  Sometimes, northern lights fill the sky with their wavering, ghostly beauties that light up the poles during the dark winters at the poles.

     Artificial, outdoor lights illuminate clouds, thus silhouetting trees, buildings and so on before those clouds.  And light reflected back to the ground brightens it a bit, especially during a snow storm.  

     The sky has many beauties in itself through each year.  One seldom has to go out of his or her way to see many of these sky beauties.          

           

            

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