Wallaceburg CBC

(not today!)

Today was the Wallaceburg CBC. It has been ongoing since 1986 and I have been doing it since 1987.
Perhaps today's was one of the stranger ones with a very low number of birds.  Only 70 species recorded with several obvious misses.  There were more birds in each of the last three days, empasized by the 11 count week species missed so far.
There have been hundreds and hundreds of gulls on the St. Clair River lately, but not today!  Not a single Glaucous in the circle!  Ducks were low in numbers (several singles), but a good variety was seen.  Wood Duck, Pintail, Green-winged Teal, Gadwall and White-winged Scoter were decent finds.
Some of the more bizarre misses were Great Blue Heron (at least three seen in the last three days!), Northern Shrike, any wren species!, berry-eating birds [thrushes, mimids] (only a single Cedar Waxwing!) and grebes.  The Red-necked Grebe was not found (would have been a new count species) and the Pied-billed Grebe I saw before dusk yesterday never materialized.
The Peregrine Falcon at Detroit Edison may not be there this year--it has not been seen lately.
An American Coot was seen--good for this count.
One of the stranger sights was a "flock" of 24 Flickers on Walpole Island.  Only two other flickers were recorded on the count.
Black-capped Chickadees were plentiful, not surprisingly.  Tufted Titmouse was at 48, about average.
Blackbirds and sparrows were low in numbers.  Only one Swamp Sparrow--another strange tally.  Maris and I had that first thing in the morning.
We did record a handful of Common Redpolls.  I would expect those to increase in the coming weeks.

Winter came too early, too quick and stayed this year!  Many of the birds simply left!