The Egret Article

By Cameron Chevalier

2022 was my second year of participating in the Holiday Beach Christmas Bird Count, and this time I birded with Mike and Steve McAllister (our friend Harrison Priebe was unfortunately prevented from joining us by the major storm that hit around that time). Having had a pretty slow morning at other hotspots in our count area, we entered Memorial Forest from County Road 50. Harrison had introduced me to this hotspot over two years prior, and it has yielded us many great birds since then (Northern Goshawk, Hudsonian Godwit, Dickcissel, and Acadian Flycatcher to name a few). Mike went off to search a few trees for owls, and just as he returned I remarked that at Memorial we would at least add a chickadee to our list. Moments later, a calling chickadee flew across the path and landed five meters ahead of us just off trail, at head height. Mike responded to my comment by pointing out the bird, and we all easily dismissed it as a familiar Black-capped Chickadee until I decided to use my binoculars. I was shocked to see a clear Boreal Chickadee, with its brown cap, dark gray-brown back and nape, and bright rusty flanks, and called it out frantically. I had studied the species wanting to add it to my life list for a while, so my identification was immediate. With the suggestion of southward movement earlier in the fall, Boreal Chickadee had been on the radar of Essex birders in 2022, but by the end of the year it seemed hopeless. Mike and Steve assumed I was kidding until they looked as well and we collectively freaked out! I was so excited that I didn’t take any photos and instead focused on sharing our find, hoping to get as many people out as possible for this incredible record. Over the next several weeks, many other birders arrived and got great looks and photos, and the bird became somewhat of a local celebrity. It persists at the same location at the time of writing.

While a relative outlier in recent years both regionally and for Southwestern Ontario as a whole, this is not the first Boreal Chickadee record for Essex. There are approximately 12 previous records, with the most recent coming 17 years ago during Alan Wormington’s record-breaking Point Pelee Birding Area Big Year in 2005 (though a possible record from Holiday Beach during the irruption year in 2010 exists). Surprisingly, the present record constitutes the first time the species was recorded in Essex in the month of December, and the species has now been recorded in the county in seven different months (November to May)!

For me, finding this bird with Mike and Steve during the Holiday Beach Christmas Bird Count goes to show what CBCs and birding throughout the year (even in the winter months) are all about: simply getting out to see what species may be around. In my experience there is always something interesting, and in this case, the Boreal Chickadee served as an excellent final addition to a remarkable year of birding in Essex in 2022.

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.