Just found this paper that shows in 1994 Lake Erie went from ~50% iced over on Jan 12 to ~100% on Jan 21 (Fig. 8). I’m imagining grebes on 5000 square miles of lake getting confined to a smaller and smaller area over a week then abruptly on one calm night being forced to evacuate en masse.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0477(1996)077%3C0071%3AWWAICF%3E2.0.CO%3B2 Lake Erie was reported to be 95% ice covered last Thursday, so I imagine the most recent cold snap has by now pretty much eliminated that lake’s open water for waterfowl. Bill E -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
