countifs in Excel 365

Hi Hive

I'm struggling with the below "countifs" statements.  this is a simplified version of my actual formula, but I'm getting the same weird output.

Basically, I'm trying to count up the number of dates in column B that are greater than or equal to dates in column A by month(defined in cells D1 & E1), and where column B is not blank.

This is my formula in cell D2:

=COUNTIFS($A$2:$A$5,">="&D1,$A$2:$A$5,"<="&EOMONTH(D1,0),$B$2:$B$5,"<>"&"",$B$2:$B$5,"<="&@$A$2:$A$5)

and in E2:

=COUNTIFS($A$2:$A$5,">="&E1,$A$2:$A$5,"<="&EOMONTH(E1,0),$B$2:$B$5,"<>"&"",$B$2:$B$5,"<="&@$A$2:$A$5)

using the current values in column B, my actual answers should be 3 for September and 1 for October.  I think this may be with the new spill feature in excel 365 as I don't think I've had this problem before.  The "@" was added by excel 

my logic in the formula is:

count where cells in range $A$2:$A$5 are greater than or equal to start of month

AND

where cells in range $A$2:$A$5 are less than or equal to end of month

AND 

where cells in range $B$2:$B$5 are not equal to "" 

AND

where cells in range $B$2:$B$5 are less than or equal to their corresponding cells in range $A$2:$A$5 (eg B3 <=A3)

To get round this problem, I've added a helper column with formulas to my workbook, but I'd rather not use that if I can solve this problem.

Any suggestions much appreciated