Christmas Bird Count counters counted 2 crows and about 1153 other birds, including a Vaux's swift, this morning (while yours truly was playing hooky at the beach with out of town relatives, counting sea gull tracks in the sand and watching the pelicans dive).

Posted on the Echo Park Animal Alliance list:

We had an enthusiastic mix of experienced and beginning birders today ... Even our "be on the lookout for" bird actually showed up. Dave Surtees kept scanning the skies, and lo and behind, there was a Vaux' swift, just above us near the boathouse. A really good birding day became a great day. Echo Park Lake may not be a big place, but we sure do get great visitors.

The final tally for the day: 33 species, 1155 individual birds counted In addition, in the three days prior to the count we also had 6 species that get a mention on the CBC scoreboard, but don't get counted individually. That's a record, I think, for the lake. Here is today's list:

4 pied billed grebe
2 double-crested cormorant
5 black-crowned night heron
8 Canada geese
53 Mallard duck
26 American wigeon
5 Northern shoveler
1 Red-tailed hawk
229 American coot
1 Ring-billed gull
12 California gull
1 Thayer's gull
146 Western gull
247 Rock pigeon
1 Vaux's swift
6 White-throated swift
2 Anna's hummingbird
1 Northern flicker
1 Black phoebe
2 Cassin's kingbird
2 American crow
2 Northern mockingbird
116 European starling
26 Yellow-rumped warbler
1 Townsend's warbler
73 Brewer's blackbird
128 Great-tailed grackle
29 Brown-headed cowbird
11 House finch
2 House sparrow
7 Yellow-chevroned parakeet
Also
1 Ross's goose
4 Shelduck

In the the three days previous
Nutall's woodpecker
Herring gull
Glaucous-winged gull
Ring-necked duck
Great blue heron
Gadwall

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...I returned to Echo Park at about 1 p.m. something. Passing the lake, I could see that in addition to the birds there were a lot of people, especially at the south end where humans tend to congregate. I could have counted a few odd ducks among those folks, no doubt.