Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2001 19:21:18 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Rick Sussman Subject: Black Hill Reg'l Park woodpeckers Comments: cc: voice@capaccess.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all, I birded at Black Hill Regional Park this morning. Views fro the visitor center deck were rather un-rewarding (Paul Zucker take note and feel confident in your decision to cancel the Howard trip). Very little waterfowl on the reservoir from that viewpoint. Most interesting were a trio of Common Mergs (a male and two females). As I was leaving I met up with a group from our Montgomery Chapter and spent a pleasant morning birding with them. We took a short hike near Ten-mile Creek with long, far-off views of some waterfowl (perhaps as many as 100 Tundra Swans), and then we broke up into a smaller group, birding around the lake by car. Various stops along the reservoir produced the expected species, with an assortment of raptors, waterfowl and dickey birds, but nothing out of the ordinary. About 11:15 we broke up again, leaving me on my own. I wanted to go look for RED-HEADED WOODPECKERS, so headed off in my van, parking in Lot 8 and walking down the woods to the hiker-biker path for a view of the dead snags standing in the water. After a bit of searching, I located 3 beautiful adults, all working different trees. They seemed to be either excavating cavities or very actively feeding (it really appeared as if they were working on new holes). I saw no immatures. So anyone wishing to find them, drive the loop (bearing right out of the parking lot by the visitor center) and park in Lot 8. Head downhill, across the road, to a bright orange pole which marks the fiber-optics buried cables/right-of-way, then a little further downhill to the hiker/biker path. Search the dead trees in the water carefully, and you should have some luck finding them. Good luck, Rick Sussman Ashton,MD (montgomery County) warblerick@aol.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================