Almost exactly 31 years ago I was at Churchill, Manitoba looking at the Polar Bears and a few Arctic special birds such as Gyr Falcon, Snowy Owl and Willow Ptarmigan. A little known aspect of Churchill
life was that the town ran a sweepstake in which, rather than drawing donkeys as happened in many areas of Australia yesterday, people drew the day on which the ice on the Churchill River cleared sufficiently to allow the grain ships in. This made a lot of
money for the town.
I suggest that there is a similar, but in some way reversed opportunity for COG. People nominate the day on which the reeds completely block the view from Cygnus Hide. From what I saw there today
(image attached) there would be a lot of support - from optimists - for dates early in 2023.
