The final Christmas Bird Counts for the Cape and Islands were held over the last week – the Truro count on the 2nd and the Vineyard count on the 5th. The closer it gets to the end of the count period, the risker the weather gets, with higher chances of a deep freeze or storm in early January wrecking your count. I had rescheduled my Truro count from the 28th to the 2nd to avoid a day of wind-driven rain, and the gambit worked. The Vineyard count wasn’t so lucky.