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February 2014

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From:
Bill Whan <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Bill Whan <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 19 Feb 2014 11:07:11 -0500
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Two questions to ponder.  With such a large percentage of Great Lakes
frozen (up to today, anyhow) we have expected to see larger numbers of
species that normally winter on these bodies of waters. One example is
the red-necked grebe. On the two most recent near-total freeze-ups, we
have seen wondrous numbers of them across the state, in the winters of
1984 and 2003: Ohio observers counted 100+ in '94 and 190+ in '03. This
year we've seen even fewer than usual thus far, countable on one hand.
Is the frozen-lake theory no longer tenable? If so, what explanation
might make more sense?
        I keep reading surprising reports of greater scaups seen this winter
(and a lot way inland, which is still odder), and fewer of lesser
scaups. Admittedly, this is a really tough field ID to make under normal
conditions, but in an average year lessers far outnumber greaters.
Milton Trautman went on a bit of a rampage about these species back in
the '30s, asserting that nearly all of the greater scaup species in the
state's museums had been misidentified by the experts of yore, and
he--in the OSU museum anyway--replaced them with real greaters he had
more carefully identified. See
https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/auk/v048n02/p0257-p0258.pdf
  and
https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/auk/v052n02/p0201-p0202.pdf
   If I read Trautman's conclusions correctly, only one of 525+ museum
skins labeled as Ohio greaters actually was correctly identified.  A
whole roomful of experts missed the IDs of dead scaups on the table, and
so, I expect, do we, often enough, when we look at them from a distance.
Or has this unusually cold winter brought unusual numbers of greaters
this far south?
Bill Whan
Columbus


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