Pi Day Friday

in honor of a mathematician's (or physics groupie's) favorite day of the year, 3.14, here's pics from Tiscornia today.  The SE winds provoked some actual migration, though most of the movement was correctional; the birds, mainly Long-tailed Ducks, were going south.

 This one is actually from yesterday, it was calmer then.

Yesterday I was there at dawn, some of the birds hadn't woken up yet; check out the ice/frost on the WW scoters...

 they thaw though.

I was actually kind of excited about finding a Red-necked Grebe this morning.

That is until Tim told me Sarett released one there yesterday.  Oh well.  The commonly cited conventional wisdom is that bad weather causes these birds to lift off the sheltering 35 degree water they're designed for and choose to fly around instead in a 15 degree ice/snow storm, get lost inland, and then brought to nature centers.  Brandon Holden's been leading the theory that the wrecked birds are actually early migrants that fall out when they hit an unanticipated storm front, which makes a lot more sense.

There was actually a drake Red-breasted in the little back pond at LMC yesterday.  I'm not sure whose theory it would have fallen under.  This one is from its more traditional Lake habitat.

Random shot of blue ice.

I'm guessing the mechanism of its creation is different from other colors of snow.