• News
  • Lake Facts
  • About

Lake Scientist

Lake Elsinore: Where Are All the Birds?

0
  • by Daniel Kelly
  • — January 21, 2014
Butterfield_Elementary_School_and_Lake_Elsinore

Butterfield Elementary School is located within walking distance of Lake Elsinore. (Credit: David Pickett via Wikimedia Commons)

Grebes are funny birds. Not really ducks and certainly not swans, it’s hard to place them. Some have black throats, some have white throats – a few have red eyes. Lake Elsinore, the largest natural freshwater body in Southern California, is looking for a few good grebes.

With water levels slipping in the lake, grebe populations – specifically Clark’s Grebes – have taken a skydive. A chapter of the National Audubon Society recorded the decline, counting birds within a 7.5-mile radius around Lake Elsinore. Only 118 grebes were counted in December 2013, compared to 9,762 a year before.

clarks-grebe

Clark’s Grebe. (Credit: kat+sam via Creative Commons)

Taking a look at all bird populations, there was a 62 percent drop. The Press-Enterprise reports 9,388 birds flocked to the lake this year. In 2012, there were almost 25,000.

Drops in other species recorded over the same period:

  • Northern Shovelers – 5,132 to 2,846

  • Ruddy Ducks – 1,171 to 492

  • American Coots – 1,337 to 349

So what happened to all the chirping birds?

Maybe the grebes ate them into a corner and they went elsewhere for food. Birdwatchers say grebes love fish and commonly dive into Lake Elsinore in determined pursuit of a meal. When there were more than 10,000 grebes on the lake (numbers last seen in 2011), they tested the fishery’s strength.

But experts at the University of California – Davis say the problem is likely part of statewide difficulties due to drought. California Gov. Jerry Brown called them “perhaps the worst” drought conditions the state has seen since record-keeping began. With little rain and low snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains (13 percent of normal), water levels have dropped across the state.

The U.S. Drought Monitor backs this up, with Lake Elsinore – like most of the state – seeing severe to extreme drought conditions:

us_drought_monitor_jan_14_2014

 

Share

You may also like...

  • last mountain lake Last Mountain Lake: Oldest Bird Sanctuary in North America
  • Lake Okeechobee from the International Space Station Higher Levels A Catch-22 for Lake Okeechobee
  • Ocean fishery in steep decline
  • All Dried Up: Five Disappearing Lakes

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Time limit is exhausted. Please reload CAPTCHA.

FishSens SondeCAM HD
  • Recent Posts

    • Research Brief: Influence of Climate Change and Anthropogenic Stressors on HABs in Zhanjiang BaySeptember 22, 2023
    • From the Tap: Source Water Monitoring for Public HealthSeptember 18, 2023
    • Red swamp crawfishResearch Brief: Using Red Swamp Crayfish as Bioindicators of Microplastic PollutionSeptember 15, 2023
    • Choosing the Right Water Quality Monitoring Systems Is Crucial for Stantec Inc.September 11, 2023
    • Elâzığ, TurkeyResearch Brief: Zebra Mussels as Sentinel Species for Monitoring MicroplasticsSeptember 8, 2023
  • Popular Tags

    Great Lakes research research summary pollution Lake Erie invasive species Product Spotlight Algae runoff international Lake Michigan nutrient-loading Ohio dissolved oxygen EPA research brief eutrophication temperature toxic waters climate change USGS phosphorus ice Asian Carp Michigan

©2023 Fondriest Environmental Inc. | Questions? Call 888.426.2151 or email customercare@fondriest.com