A fogbow is something I’ve heard of, but have never seen before – until now. This morning I went for an early morning walk at the Eagleson Ponds, and was dismayed at first to see how foggy it was. It was only a couple of degrees above zero, with a low fog and an otherwise bright blue sky. I started walking south along the shoreline, and when I looked across the water, I saw it – a bright white patch resting on the water with a thin, pale arc reaching toward the sky like half of a rainbow. There was no colour within the arc – it appeared the same ghostly white colour as the mist.
I followed the direction of the arc with my eyes, and found another bright white patch of fog shining just at the water’s surface of the central pond, with a second arc curving toward the first. It was not a complete “bow”, but I knew what it must be – a fogbow.
Fogbows are created much in the same way as rainbows, with sunlight shining through the fog droplets and causing the light to refract at predictable angles. Fogbows can be found anywhere provided the conditions are right: thin fog and fairly bright sunshine. In addition, the the sun must be fairly low in the sky – less than 30-40° above the horizon unless you are on a hill or a ship where the mist and fogbow can be viewed from above. This is why they are most commonly seen from hills, mountains and on ships sailing through the sea mist. In fact, sea or river fog is an excellent source of fogbows. This fog forms quite frequently when warm air comes in contact with the cooler water and is chilled.
The smaller water droplets within the fog diffract light much more extensively than the rain droplets that create rainbows. Because of this, fogbows are usually white with faint reds on the outside and blues inside. They may also contain a glory at their center – a small, bright patch of colour containing the colours of the rainbow. Glories form directly opposite the sun whenever the mist or fog is below the observer, and are often photographed by mountain climbers.
I did not see a glory, and the fogbow itself was very faint. Some fogbows have very low contrast, so they are best found by looking for small bright patches in the misty background – this type of bow is brightest at the two points where it appears to meet the sea or ground. This is exactly how I managed to find it.
It didn’t last long, and disappeared as the sun climbed higher and the mist faded. I was happy to see it and add a new type of atmospheric phenomenon to my list.
The following day Deb and I spent the morning birding along the Ottawa River. There were only two weeks left until Christmas, and we wanted to make the most of our morning as we weren’t sure whether we’d be able to get out together again before the new year. We agreed to meet at 7:30, not realizing just how short the days had become; the sun had barely risen when I left, and a sun pillar was visible in the sky. The sunrise was gorgeous, but by the time I was able to pull over onto the shoulder in a safe place the sun pillar had become nearly invisible. One of the bonuses of winter birding is that the sun is so low in the sky in the morning, atmospheric phenomena such as sun dogs and other 
After several days of gray, oppressive skies, Monday turned out to be beautiful and sunny. I decided to take my camera with me to work so I could go to Hurdman at lunch; however, even before I got to the bus stop that morning I found something interesting to photograph. A few thin, gauzy white clouds were spread across the sky, and in one of these I noticed the rainbow colours of a sun dog! Sun dogs are very common, but are seldom noticed. They appear twice a week in North America, on average, no matter what time of year it is, but are best seen when the sun is low in the sky. Sometimes they are so bright it appears as if there are three suns in the sky; at other times, only a smudge of colour is visible.
The Pathless Wood 