By Jeremy Hatt
The 2022 Holiday Beach CBC took place on Tuesday, December 27th. The count includes Holiday Beach Conservation Area, Big Creek, the Lower Detroit River north to LaSalle (Lower Detroit River KBA), Boblo Island and surrounding areas. Unfortunately, Boblo Island continues to be inaccessible to non-residents due to construction on the island, which was also the case for the CBC in 2021.
Participation was down from recent years of the count but this is likely attributable to the count falling on a Tuesday. Ideally the count takes place on a weekend but Christmas and New Years holidays falling on the weekends at the end of December resulted in the count being through the week. 24 participants volunteered tallying 76 species and 14,228 individual birds. The species count of 76 is four below the record high of 80 species.
Skies were mostly cloudy throughout the day w/ occasional sun making for mostly comfortable birding. The morning was fairly calm w/ increasing southwest winds in the afternoon. Temperatures ranged from a low of -5C in the morning to -3C in the afternoon. Due to the major winter storm that took place just before Christmas, there was a lot of snow cover during the count and all inland waters were frozen, as well as the Lake Erie shoreline and most of the Detroit River except for small areas of open water. This resulted in significantly lower waterfowl counts (notably Mallard and Canvasback) than milder years including the absence of expected species like Lesser Scaup, Bufflehead, and Red-breasted Merganser.
Unquestionably, the best bird of the count was a Boreal Chickadee found by Cameron Chevalier and Michael and Steve McAllister in Memorial Woods across from Holiday Beach. This was a new species for the count and the first record for Essex County since 2005! Many birders took short breaks from counting in their areas to come enjoy this significant rarity for Essex County. A more detailed, first-hand account of Cameron Chevalier finding the Boreal Chickadee is also available in this issue of The Egret.
Several record high counts were also broken this year including 108 Great Blue Heron (previous high count of 45), 45 Sandhill Crane (previous high count of 2), 29 Tufted Titmouse (previous high count of 16), 6 Winter Wren (previous high count of 5), 5 Fox Sparrow (previous high count of 3), 954 Brown-headed Cowbird (previous high count of 600), and 2 Purple Finch (previous high count of 1).
Other notable sightings included 2 Snow Goose, 8 Cackling Goose (tied previous record high count), 2 Wood Duck, 5 Ring-necked Duck (often missed on the count), 1 juvenile Golden Eagle, 51 Bald Eagle (good number for the count), 1 Lesser Black-backed Gull (seen on only two previous counts), 1 Northern Saw-Whet Owl (recorded on only two previous counts), 81 American Robin (good number for the count), 1 Eastern Phoebe (often missed on the count), and 232 Northern Cardinal (10 below the high count of 242).
Good counts of several sparrow species were also tallied including American Tree Sparrow (251), Dark-eyed Junco (411), White-crowned Sparrow (15), White-throated Sparrow (86), and Song Sparrow (44).
A big thank you is necessary for Area Leaders Bob Hall-Brooks, Paul Pratt, Ian Woodfield, Kory Renaud, and Linda Wladarski and Dave Martin for arranging coverage in their areas, volunteers for their efforts in counting birds, and to Kory and Sarah Renaud for hosting another great roundup w/ delicious food and refreshments.