© Lynn ChamberlainA stranded grebe
Grebes are smaller cousins to the loon, and spend their entire lives in the air or on the water. But with more than 80 per cent of the Great Lakes covered in ice, grebes are having a tough time finding open water to land in during Ontario's deep freeze. That's forced some grebes to touch down on solid ground, where they lack the ability to walk or take flight again.
"If the grebes land on land, they're dead," said Gail Lenters, who operates the Shades of Hope Wildlife Refuge, located north of Toronto, near Lake Simcoe.
Comment: It appears to shaping up to be a re-run of last years' mass avian die-off (due to the extreme cold and extensive ice cover), see these March, 2014 reports:
Hundreds of ducks found dead around Great Lakes due to ice cover
10 Fold increase in the number of dying water birds rescued in Toronto due to extreme cold
Death toll of waterbirds on frozen Lake Erie likely to number tens of thousands