Four ducks perch on the bank of one of the ponds in the Oakdale / Farmer's Creek wetland in Lapeer, Michigan. A couple weeks ago, the geese left the area and for the last week or so, dozens of ducks like this were happily swimming and doing duck things in this pond, until a couple days ago when the temperatures became colder, rather early in the season, according to the local people I talk to.
Today, you can see to the left of these four remaining ducks is the one small still-shimmering section of the pond which has not yet skinned over with ice. It is about 15:15 in the afternoon on Sunday, 2014 Nov 16. Overnight, this small section will certainly become skinned with ice also, and with temperatures predicted to average -5 Celsius from Monday night thru Friday, the whole surface will be frozen hard.
I wonder what the ducks are thinking.