Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2004 22:24:43 EST Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Louis Nielsen Subject: Big Pool redux MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Greetings, Inspired by Dave Perry's post on Wednesday, I got myself to Washington County by 8 a.m. Finding the gate to Fort Frederick closed until 11 a.m. I chanced onto the "Rail-head Trail" just a short way back along Rt. 56 toward I-70. I discovered that the upper reaches of Big Pool are viewable from the pathway just beyond the parking lot and that if you try the tracks you can get very good looks into the shallow, woodsy northern end of the Pool. It was gray and a bit misty at 8:15 but not so bad as to thwart the search. Tundra Swan 8 overhead Canada Goose 8 Wood Duck 20 American Wigeon 13 Mallard 200 Northern Shoveler 2 Ring-necked Duck 12 Hooded Merganser 4 Common Merganser 15 Killdeer 5 overhead calling Ring-billed Gull 70 (on the ice) Rock Pigeon 3 Mourning Dove 1 Belted Kingfisher 2 Red-bellied Woodpecker 2 Pileated Woodpecker 1 Carolina Wren 1 Northern Mockingbird 2 (one singing constantly) American Robin 10 Tufted Titmouse 2 White-breasted Nuthatch 2 Blue Jay 8 American Crow 9 Fish Crow 10 European Starling 20 Song Sparrow 10 White-throated Sparrow 9 Dark-eyed Junco 30 Northern Cardinal 1 Red-winged Blackbird 5 Common Grackle 15 At 11 a.m. I enter Fort Frederick, park at the canal pathway and walk part of the trail along the western edge of Big Pool. I find Tundra Swan 2500 to 3000 (well up to the north of the pond) Gadwall 2 American Black Duck 2 Ring-necked Duck 50 Red-breasted Merganser 3 (two males one female) Common Merganser 40 and lots of ducks too far to sort out as I'm too lazy to walk all the way to the far end. I guess that's where the pintails were. The clerk at the visitors' center told me that the swans are "regular visitors" ... I presume in migration. Other stuff: At McCoy's Ferry, on the Potomac, I saw great, gray walls of ice pushed up into windrows and walls along the shore, some as high as twelve feet or more. Many trees on the shore had fresh scouring where the moving ice had removed all the bark facing the river for several feet up their trunks. Awesome. On Four Locks Road, just after the tunnel, I heard my first Phoebe of the year. The only House Finch of the day was on McCoy's Ferry Road. For what its worth, the AOL spellchecker wants to change Wigeon to Widgeon! By noon the sun was shining brightly, the breeze was warm and I had to shed my sweater. A great day to be birding. Lou Lou Nielsen Reisterstown, MD clodvig II@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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================