The Holiday Beach CBC took place today, Saturday, December 28th. The count includes Holiday Beach Conservation Area, Big Creek, the lower Detroit River north to LaSalle (Lower Detroit IBA), Boblo Island, and surrounding areas. 37 participants (36 in the field and 1 feeder watcher) volunteered for the Count, tallying 76 species and 15,624 individual birds. This is on par w/ the number of species and individuals seen for the last few years of the count. No additional species have yet been reported for Count Week. Skies were cloudy in the morning turning to partly sunny in the afternoon. The temperature was around 1C in the morning 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. 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. Similar to previous years, the most abundant bird of the count was Canvasback w/ 2,326 birds tallied; lower than the previous year's count of 6,000+ (the Lower Detroit River is an Important Bird Area for this species w/ 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 this year's count include: Snow Goose - 4 birds from two separate areas Trumpeter Swan - 1 individual American Wigeon - a good count of 27 birds within the Holiday Beach marsh American Black Duck - a good count of 268 birds mostly in the Holiday Beach marsh Redhead - a good count of 1,167 birds on Lake Erie and along the Detroit River Double-crested Cormorant - 3 separate birds along the Detroit River Great Egret - 1 late bird in the Holiday Beach marsh Turkey Vulture - 1 late bird Red-shouldered Hawk - 2 birds seen at Holiday Beach American Coot - 2 birds in the Holiday Beach marsh Eastern Phoebe - 1 bird on Boblo Island and 2 at Holiday Beach Northern Shrike - 1 bird west of Holiday Beach Carolina Wren - a good count of 37 birds across the count area Ruby-crowned Kinglet - 1 bird on Boblo Island Many thanks 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 big thank you to Sarah and Kory Renaud for hosting another excellent roundup w/ lots of great food. Jeremy Hatt & Kory Renaud