Birders: The 38th St. Clair NWA CBC was held on Jan 1, 2018. A total of 18 birders ventured out in frigid wind chill conditions, and tallied 62 species. This is well below the most recent 10 year average of slightly over 80 species. Open water at various places in this wetland landscape is crucial to observing good numbers and this year, as most counts have experienced, there was virtually no open water. Instead of typically recording 15-25 species of waterfowl, we only recorded 7. Unfortunately there were a couple of open wetland areas that usually attract upwards of 10-15000 waterfowl of 10 species or more that we did not have access to this year. There were no new high counts. There were a few birds of note, however, including Gray Catbird (2) as well as Chipping Sparrow (1), Fox Sparrow (2), Great Blue Heron (31), and Bald Eagle (18), among others. Not surprisingly, American Crows were by far the most abundant individual species, with an estimated 125,000. Allen Woodliffe, Compiler Chatham