The first ever Comber CBC took place yesterday, December 22nd, w/ 16 keen and enthusiastic volunteers. I am grateful for their participation in the inaugural Count. A total of 22.75km were walked for 10 hours and 583km driven for 32.75 hours and one hour of owling. The Count was one of the coldest days of the winter period so far in 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 waters and about 500m of the edge of Lake St. Clair were completely frozen. 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, 1 Northern Shrike, 2 Common Ravens, 1 American Pipit, 2 Fox Sparrows, and 1 Eastern Towhee. Notable counts included 1,064 Tundra Swans, 1,418 Sandhill Cranes (no doubt on the move from the drop in temperatures), 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 like Northern Harrier, Red-tailed Hawk, and Cooper's Hawk were found in good number 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. Next year’s Count will be held on December 21st. Jeremy Hatt