The Egret Article

By Jeremy Hatt

The 2024 Holiday Beach CBC took place on Saturday, December 28^th. The count includes Holiday Beach Conservation Area, Big Creek, the Lower Detroit River north to LaSalle (Lower Detroit River IBA), Boblo Island and surrounding areas. Boblo Island continues to be inaccessible due to construction on the island but the rest of the count circle received great coverage. 26 participants volunteered for the count, tallying a whopping 93 species and 48,107 individual birds. This species count beats the previous record of 88 set in 2023 and was the highest species count of all the CBC’s in Essex County this winter!

Volunteers experienced unseasonably warm weather w/ temperatures ranging from 9C in the morning to 13C in the afternoon. The sky was sunny all day and winds were a moderate 20-27km/h SW. By mid-afternoon, one could comfortably wear just a sweatshirt or light jacket. Lake Erie, the Detroit River, and inland waters were all open, which resulted in a good diversity of waterfowl. Significant counts of several dabbling ducks were made and southwest winds encouraged a good movement of waterfowl on Lake Erie as well.

The best bird of the count was a long overdue species add for the Holiday Beach CBC, a lone White-winged Scoter flying west past the Delta Trail (spotted by Michael McAllister w/ Cameron Chevalier and Harrison Priebe and subsequently seen flying past Holiday Beach by Jacob Stasso).

A stunning number of record high counts were set this year:

Cackling Goose – 19 (previous high of 8)
Trumpeter Swan – 4 (previous high of 1)
Tundra Swan – 1,505 (previous high of 1,438)
American Wigeon – 42 (previous high of 35)
American Black Duck – 718 (previous high of 364)
Northern Pintail – 34 (previous high of 18)
Bufflehead – 286 (previous high of 183)
Hooded Merganser – 86 (previous high of 33)
Red-breasted Merganser – 1,446 (previous high of 1,003)
Eastern Screech-Owl – 7 (previous high of 6)
Peregrine Falcon – 3 (previous high of 2)
White-throated Sparrow – 349 (previous high of 124)
Common Grackle – 441 (previous high of 376)
Purple Finch – 16 (previous high of 2)

Other notable sightings included:

Wood Duck – 2 (often missed on this count)
Green-winged Teal – 1 (seen on only one previous count)
Northern Shoveler – 23 (often missed on this count)
Canvasback – 28,394 (second-highest count behind 40,501)
Iceland Gull – 1 (seen on only one previous count)
Lesser Black-backed Gull – 1 (seen on three previous counts)
Northern Mockingbird – 1 (seen on three previous counts)
Killdeer – 1 (seen on two previous counts)
Sandhill Crane – 7 (seen on three previous counts)
Northern Saw-Whet Owl – 1 (seen on three previous counts)
Belted Kingfisher – 1 (often missed on this count)
Lapland Longspur – 5 (seen on two previous counts)
Eastern Towhee – 1 (often missed on this count)

Notable misses this year include Snow Goose (seen the previous four years of the count), Double-crested Cormorant (often at least one found on the Detroit River), Rough-legged Hawk, American Coot (sometimes found in the Holiday Beach marsh), Short-eared Owl (abundant in the county this winter), Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (several wintering this year), Eastern Phoebe, Northern Shrike, Marsh Wren, American Pipit (many persisting into the winter this year), Chipping Sparrow, Field Sparrow, and Pine Siskin.

The Holiday Beach CBC also got some local media attention. Jeremy Hatt and Kory Renaud were interviewed at the Big Creek Conservation Area during the count and an article appeared in the Windsor Star covering some highlights of the CBC. The article can be read here: https://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/mild-winter-brings-high-windsor-essex-christmas-bird-count

Many thanks to all the Area Leaders and dedicated volunteers for their efforts, and to Kory and Sarah Renaud for hosting another great roundup and serving a much welcomed hot meal at the end of the day! Everyone really stepped up this year and helped make it a fantastic count.

Jeremy Hatt & Kory Renaud

By: Jeremy Hatt

The first ever Comber CBC took place on December 22^nd, 2024, w/ 16 keen and enthusiastic volunteers. A total of 22.75km were walked for 10 hours and 583km driven for 32.75 hours and one hour was spent owling.

The Count was one of the coldest days of the winter period in 2024 for the region w/ temperatures ranging from -6C in the morning to -1C by the afternoon. Sunny skies and a light south wind helped make the day comfortable for birding. Most inland water and about 500m of the edge of Lake St. Clair were completely frozen.

The Comber CBC circle spans across Essex and Chatham-Kent Counties and includes several birding hotspots including Ruscom Shores Conservation Area, The Trans Canada Trail from Staples to Comber, Big ‘O’ Conservation Area, Comber Sewage Lagoons, Rowsom’s Tilbury West Conservation Area, Tremblay Beach Conservation Area, Stoney Point Sewage Lagoons, Tilbury Sewage Lagoons, Northside Park, and several parkettes along the Lake St. Clair shoreline.

By the end of the count, a total of 76 species and 26,812 individuals were counted.

The best bird of the Count was a male Yellow-headed Blackbird found by Paul Pratt and Paula O’Rourke at the Comber Agris Co-op. Other highlights included 1 Wood Duck, 2 Glaucous Gulls, 1 Iceland Gull, 1 Snowy Owl, 11 Short-eared Owls, 1 Northern Shrike, 2 Common Ravens, 1 American Pipit, 2 Fox Sparrows, and 1 Eastern Towhee. The Northern Shrike was flushed by Jacob Stasso on his way to the roundup showing that it’s never too late to add a species to the Count! At least three separate areas had Short-eared Owls active at dusk.

Notable counts included 1,064 Tundra Swans, 1,418 Sandhill Cranes (on the move after a significant drop in temperature across the province), 537 American Herring Gulls, 27 Northern Harriers, 1,728 House Sparrows, 8,997 Snow Buntings, 331 American Tree Sparrows, 16 White-crowned Sparrows, and 983 Dark-eyed Juncos.

Birds seemed to be scarce in forested areas but passerines were concentrated in higher numbers along creek edges, tree lines, and weedy fields; particularly sparrows. Winter finches were very low in number overall but other winter specialties like Snow Bunting were easily found throughout the Circle. Rafts of ducks reaching the thousands can often be found on the east end of Lake St. Clair but the freeze up made it more difficult to get high numbers of waterfowl and dabbling ducks were especially absent due to frozen inland waters. Raptors were easily found throughout the Count Circle and four species of owls were tallied.

Notable misses included Redhead, Bufflehead, Wilson’s Snipe, Bonaparte’s Gull, Pied-billed Grebe, Double-crested Cormorant, Red-shouldered Hawk, Eastern Phoebe, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Marsh Wren, Eastern Bluebird, Purple Finch, Chipping Sparrow, Field Sparrow, Eastern Meadowlark, Common Yellowthroat, and Yellow-rumped Warbler.

A casual roundup was held at the A&W in Comber to tally species totals and individual counts.

Next year’s CBC will be held on December 21^st.

By Paul Pratt

This 24 km diameter count circle includes McGregor, Essex, Harrow and Kingsville. Our 39th annual count was held December 14. 35 participants record almost 500 km by car and 77 km by foot to record 82 species and 19,571 individual birds. Birds seen count week but missed on count day were Sandhill Crane, Short-eared Owl and Northern Shrike. Following the count observers gathered at Tom and Peggy Hurst’s home for lively discussion on the results and an excellent potluck dinner. A big thanks to all returning veterans, new birders and especially Tom and Peggy for being wonderful hosts.

Over the years we have tallied a remarkable total of 165 species and 2,133,298 individuals and recorded the annual Canadian high count for twenty species on one or more occasions. This year we added one new species for the count, Clay-colored Sparrow, found in a weedy field that was
overflowing with sparrows. A few highlights recorded during the count included high counts of 16 Whitewinged Scoter (record high), 23 Bald Eagle (record high), 3 Merlin (a tied record high), 895 American Tree Sparrow, 190 White-throated Sparrow, 1873 Dark-eyed Junco (record high), 683 Common Grackle (record high), and 774 Brown-headed Cowbird (record high). Our biggest misses this year were Eastern Screech-Owl and Yellow-rumped Warbler.

Join us next year for the 40th Cedar Creek count on December 20, 2025

PARTICIPANTS: J Affleck, J Bensette, J Burk, K Burk, M Burkoski, A Campbell, K Cedar, L Cedar, K Derbyshire, P DesJardins, K Fawdry, L Foy, J Hatt, N Herke, P Hurst, T Hurst, C Lapain, S Laurin, D Lee, C Lee, P Lee, M Lee, D Loncke, C Maiolani, J Matte, J McGorman, L Onysko, P O’Rourke, Adam Pinch, P Pratt, P Renaud, B Sanford, D Ware, A Wiebe, K Wiebe, I Woodfield.

Species Count: