Sat/Sun/Mon Birding

Norm Saunders (osprey@ARI.Net)
Mon, 19 Jan 1998 19:27:30 -0500 

Saturday, January 17, I took a turn around the Eastern Montgomery 
County ponds to see what I could find:

Brighton Dam water-levels continue quite low and the only interesting 
waterfowl was a lone Red-breasted Merganser.

Damascus Road Pond held 5 Hooded Mergansers.

Sundown Road Pond hosted 2 Common Snipe and a lone Swamp Sparrow.

Zion Road Pond, seemingly always the best location in this part of 
the County, had 1 Red-headed Woodpecker, 11 Ring-necked Duck, 4 
Bufflehead, 8 Ruddy Ducks, and the usual assortment of American 
Coots, Canada Geese, and Mallards.

Laytonsville Pond was even more barren than usual, with about 300 
Canada Geese and 1 Great Blue Heron.

At Lake Needwood I saw 8 Ring-necked Duck, 75 Canada Geese, 18 Ruddy 
Duck, 1 Bufflehead, and 25 Mallard.

The highlights of the day had to be the Red-headed Woodpecker and the 
2 Common Snipe.

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On Sunday, 18 January, Fran and I birded the boardwalk in North 
Beach, Calvert County, for the following species:

200 Common Goldeneye
100 Greater Scaup
  5 Lesser Scaup
 18 Canvasback
  1 Black Scoter
  6 Surf Scoter
  1 Oldsquaw
  1 Red-breasted Merganser
 15 Horned Grebe
 25 Mallard

Moving down-County to the nuclear generating plant at Calvert Cliffs 
we noted:

150 Oldsquaw
 50 Greater Scaup
  2 Red-breasted Merganser
 70 Common Goldeneye
 20 Bufflehead
  1 Common Loon

Finally, at Solomon's Island, we had:

  2 Fried Oyster Sandwiches
100 French Fries

On the way home from Solomon's, very near the entrance to the Battle 
Creek Cypress Swamp Park, we saw a flock of 18 American Tree Sparrows 
in a field-bordering hedgerow.

===================================================================

This morning, Monday, 19 January, we trucked up to Cecil County to 
the Cecil County Landfill in search of "pink-legged gulls."  Alas 
there were none there, but we did see 2 Lesser Black-backed Gulls 
amidst the usual dump habitues.

If you get to North East to bird, consider Jean Marie's Restaurant in 
town.  Cheap, decent food, and a busy local crowd!


Tips of the hat to Gary Griffith, Maurice Barnhill, Paul Pisano, and 
Ottavio Janni for kindly helping us to see that there were no 
pink-legged gulls at the dump.  Grin...good to see you folks, as 
always.

Cheers,
Norm


===============
Norm Saunders
Colesville, MD
osprey@ari.net