Minnehaha Creek in Late November

 Three in the afternoon, 35 degrees

When I arrived, the sounds of chickadees and a white breasted nuthatch seemed to dominate the scene.

Eventually some Mallards arrived and checked me out to see if I might toss them some food. I did not.

In a sense, everything about the time was ordinary and yet the light, the atmosphere.... was lovely and the nuthatch did show up on the big tree in front of me to traverse the trunk in the upside down nuthatch way, not quite quietly but scolding a bit.  These birds seem as accustomed to people as we are to them.