Sad, but beautiful

 

Hard to figure what happened here. At first, I saw this Mallard and took a quick picture as the colors were vivid, with a nice reflection, which you can see better in the tighter crop. We were participating in the Christmas Bird Count, the largest citizen scientist project in the US. On the Fox River in our count zone at this location, there were lots of Mallards and Common Goldeneyes around. A few minutes later, my vision comes back to this Mallard and it is in exactly the same position and pose. I realize it is dead, frozen to the river. I was with some experienced birders and they said that in 40 years of birding they have never seen anything like that. So, I wasn't the only one surprised to see such a thing. Beautiful bird. Sad ending.