Date: 2/10/13 4:04 pm
From: Marcy Stutzman <marciastutzman...>
Subject: [MDBirding] Re: Common Teal - Oxbow Lake


I thought I'd share some info about a place to look for the Green-winged Teal (Eurasian), especially if you are looking early in the morning.

I visited the Little Patuxent Oxbow Lake Nature Preserve this morning (around 9:30 a.m.) and easily found the Eurasian Teal. At that time of the morning, the temperature was still below freezing, the sky was blue, sun was shining, and there was no/little wind. Because the lake was still frozen, it was necessary only to scan the small open water areas. The lake is fed from underground streams, and that's where the water is open. The ducks/geese swim/feed in these areas keeping them open and making them larger. The sun rising in the east, hits the west side of the lake first, that's where most of the mallards and shoverlers were, so that's where I looked. I walked toward the southern most end of the lake (Eagle's Head Cove) to get a lake-level look directly across to the SW corner (near the old beaver lodge) of the lake where the ducks were concentrated. The Green-winged Teal (Eurasian) was swimming amonst other Green-winged Teal, Mallards, Shoverlers, and Mallard/Black Duck Hybrid. A bit later 6 Gadwall flew into/over the lake.

My other purpose for visiting Oxbow Lake this morning was to take pictures of the illegal stand someone has built on Anne Arundel County park land sometime since the lake flooded on 1/30/13 and receded to the low level it was today. Someone went to an awful lot of trouble: (http://www.flickr.com/photos/birdy26md/)

This area, that is at the southern end of the lake (Eagle's Head Cove) on the east side of the lake, also proved to be a good place for capturing some pictures and video of the Teal. Hopefully, there will be some good identification shots from it.

With the water level down after the flood of 1/30-31/13, there is a lot of mud exposed and vegetation making excellent habitate for teal of any kind.

If you do not have a copy of my Oxbow Lake map that identifies landmarks we use to orient us, just let me know and I'll be glad to send you one.

Good luck!

Marcy Stutzman
Russett, MD 20724

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