Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2003 18:57:28 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Michael Bowen Subject: DC ducks on 2/2 Comments: To: Voice of the Naturalist Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed There's a lot more open water on the Potomac and the Anacostia in DC than when last I went out to check for waterfowl on January 13. However, this has not been accompanied by any perceptible increase in the waterfowl population, which this morning (February 2) consisted mostly of many Canada Geese and a few Mallards. There was a single hen COMMON GOLDENEYE in the Potomac just downstream of the railroad bridge north of National Airport and 3 BUFFLEHEAD in the Washington Channel, together with a small number of LESSER SCAUP. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of gulls on the residual ice in the Washington Channel, feeding on dead fish. Try as I might (and I did try!) I could find no species beyond the usual three: Ring-billed, Herring and Great Black-backed. At least two AMERICAN COOT were on the ice near the SW boat basin. I did not have time to check down river areas off Alexandria or further south. Georgetown Reservoir and the Tidal Basin have some open water but no ducks. Mike Bowen Bethesda, MD D.H. Michael Bowen (Mike) 8609 Ewing Drive Bethesda MD 20817 Tel./Fax: (301) 530-5764 e-mail: dhmbowen@yahoo.com ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================