By Jeremy Hatt

The 2019 Holiday Beach CBC was held on Saturday, December 28th. The count includes Holiday Beach Conservation Area, Big Creek, the lower Detroit River north to LaSalle (Lower Detroit River Important Bird Area), Boblo Island, and surrounding areas.

38 volunteers participated in the count, with 37 people making observations in the field and one person observing feeders. A total of 56.75 party hours were tallied: 28.25 hours by foot, 24 hours by car, 1.5 hours of owling, and 3 hours of feeder watching. A combined total of 359km of distance was travelled for the count by foot and by car. 78 species were recorded and a total of 16,413 birds tallied. This is on par with the number of species and individuals seen for the last few years of the count. No additional species were added during Count Week.

Volunteers counting birds from the old ferry terminal on Boblo Island – photo by Jeremy Hatt

Skies were cloudy in the morning turning to partly sunny in the afternoon. The day was quite comfortable with temperatures ranging from around 1C in the early morning and warming to about 5C in the afternoon. Winds were fairly low out of the east but felt a bit more brisk along the Lake Erie shoreline, especially in the late afternoon. Following several mild days in the area, there was virtually no snow cover on the ground and no ice cover on Lake Erie, along the Detroit River, or in any marsh areas. This was similar to the 2018 count, which had no ice cover as well and was mild.

Joan Affleck and Kory Renaud counting ducks on the open waters of Big Creek – photo by Jeremy Hatt

Similar to previous years, the most abundant bird of the count was Canvasback with 2,326 birds tallied. This was lower than the previous year’s count of 6,000+ (the Lower Detroit River is an Important Bird Area for this species with greater than 1% of the global population overwintering on the river). Other diving ducks were fairly scarce and gull numbers were also down; typical of mild periods when they aren’t concentrated along the river. Similar to other counts in Essex County this year, quite a few passerine species were notably low in number or absent. 

A few highlights from the count included 4 Snow Geese, 1 Trumpeter Swan (new for the count), a good count of 27 American Wigeon in the Holiday Beach marsh, 268 American Black Duck (mostly in the Holiday Beach marsh), 1,167 Redhead along Lake Erie and the Detroit River, 3 separate Double-crested Cormorants along the Detroit River, 1 very late Great Egret in the Holiday Beach marsh (new for the count), 1 Turkey Vulture, 2 Red-shouldered Hawks at Holiday Beach, 2 American Coots within the Holiday Beach marsh, 1 Eastern Phoebe on Boblo Island and 2 at Holiday Beach, 1 Northern Shrike west of Holiday Beach, a good count of 27 Carolina Wrens across the count area, and 1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet on Boblo Island in White Sands Conservation Area.

A big thank you to our dedicated Area Leaders, Bob Hall-Brooks, Paul Pratt, Paul Desjardins, Linda Wladarski, and Dave Martin, for helping coordinate another successful CBC and thank you to all the volunteers for helping count. Also a huge thank you to Sarah and Kory Renaud for hosting another excellent roundup with lots of great food.

Area 5 volunteers from left to right: Jeremy Hatt, Kory Renaud, Joan Affleck, Larry Onysko, Paula O’Rourke, Tim Shortridge, Kathy Lesperance, and Dan Loncke – photo by Jeremy Hatt