Seagull, Duck, Swan

The weather has been dry, cold, and sunny recently. Riding home along the Vecht at the end of the day, yesterday, there was a beautiful red sun low above the horizon ahead of me. Because of the dampness, it turned pink as it grew in size on the way down. There was the beginning of a new layer of ice in the tiny canals that run through the fields, and it was cold enough during the day for it still to be there at dusk. Riding in just now, this morning, it was as cold as it has been on any of my commutes this year--confirmed by the freezing over in many places of the Vecht river. Outside of town I first saw a seagull standing on the river; then, a few miles down the road, two ducks; and eventually, just outside of Weesp, there was a swan. It looked like it had first been in the water, plowing forward through the ice, but near the middle of the river it had climbed on top of the ice, and there it was, upright, observing the frozen river from its elevated, still perch. A seagull on the ice isn't worth mentioning, but a swan, then you have something.