Sunset, Twilight, Ice, Shadows and Reflections

Hello friends and Hivians. I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season. I have to say I'm starting to enjoy mine. Work has finally slowed down some, which has allowed me more time to myself. I got off of work a few minutes early, so I made it home in time to witness the end of a sunset. I have talked to a few other hivers about how I miss a lot of sunsets this time of year. Anyway, I decided to check out a nearby lake.

The lake is only about 5 minutes away from my home and I had hopes to see the sun when I got there. The sun had already set but the twilight phase was nice to see. I quickly noticed quite a few reflections and shadows. Even though your not blinded by the sun, the sky is still illuminated enough to give you those. Seeing the different ahades of colors is already beautiful to see but seeing the reflections of it on the ice makes it two fold 😃 Normally seeing bare trees gives me the feeling of gray but with the mixed colors of the sky it takes that all away. They really blend in well together. I also visited the lake to gauge when I might be able to engage in some ice fishing 🎣 Still a little too early for that and I knew it wasn't safe to test my weight on the ice! Perhaps it will be early January when I give it a try.

Here's some close-up shots of the ice. Here trapped in the ice, we have weeds, leaves and some tiny bait fish. One would think fish would stay away from the surface of water so they dont become trapped in the ice. The species of fish you see here are gizzard shad. These fish are bait fish, not for consumption on your plate. I know them well as I use these fish for bait in the spring for catfish. It's common to see baby gizzard shad like these frozen in the ice. The bigger ones survive under the ice, but many will be floaters once the ice melts in the spring.

The air is cold and anything that puts out heat can be seen. This includes seeing my own breath at times. The air temperature is a few degrees below freezing. Some of you may be thinking thats cold but around here it's actually comfortable and a little warm for this time of year. To me, it was a nice warm winter evening as there was also no wind. The factory you see is actually further away from the lake than what it appears. To me, this photo captures the colder air well and gives a nice reflection of it on top of the ice.

What the duck! My last activity was trying to get in range to take some pictures of a few ducks. I had walked most of the docks to get these few pictures. These ducks were swimming quite fast as they actually were stirring up a wake behind them, haha. So it was like they were swimming laps around the dock. The open water is only by the docks due to their being an aerator. It was nice catching some reflections and shadows of the ducks. It wasn't long after this it just turned into night time.

I decided to go delivery driving after spending about 30 minutes here at the lake. It was a nice break between work and delivery driving. Not really much to mention about the delivery driving as it wasn't all that busy and I didn't make all that much money. In between deliveries, I did manage to capture some Christmas spirit at a park. I didn't have a lot of time there due to receiving a delivery order, but it was nice to see different colors now via an artificial source.

That's all I have for you this time around. Take care, stay safe and enjoy the rest of the holidays. Until next time!