Black Hill Waterfowlfest

Howard Youth (hmyouth@erols.com)
Wed, 06 Jan 1999 11:08:42 -0500 

This morning I decided to invest an hour to chase Andy Rabin's redhead at
Clopper Lake. I drove there to find that the lake had almost completely
frozen over overnight. In the small patch of remaining open water, just
around the shore from the boat center, I found:

		one drake ring-necked duck
		8 ruddy duck
		1 black/mallard hybrid
		1 Am. black duck
		sev. mallard
		15 or so Canada geese
		2 pied-billed grebes

Despite better judgment, and shirking lots of work, I pushed off for Black
Hill to see if Andy's redhead flew north. 

Arrived at the Rte. 121 bridge to find loads of waterfowl on both sides of
the reservoir. What follows are very rough estimates at what I saw:

	Common Loon	1
	Pied-billed Grebe	6
	Tundra Swan	30
	Canada Goose	600
	American Black Duck	10
	Mallard		30
	Gadwall	2 drakes
	American Wigeon	15, mostly drakes
	Canvasback	50
	Redhead	3 drakes
	Ring-necked Duck	~2,000
	Common Goldeneye	3 drakes
	Bufflehead	25
	Hooded Merganser	9 (7 males)
	Red-breasted Merganser	1 female
	Ruddy Duck		40

	Many ducks were distant. I'd guess some other treasures are drifting out
there. I'd be interested to read what other folks see at this spot.

	Also, four tree sparrows at the Rte. 121 bridge pulloff.
	
	Thanks for the inspiration, Andy. 

	Time to get back to work.

	Howard Youth	
	hmyouth@erols.com
	Rockville, MD