Saturday, January 17, I took a turn around the Eastern Montgomery County ponds to see what I could find: Brighton Dam water-levels continue quite low and the only interesting waterfowl was a lone Red-breasted Merganser. Damascus Road Pond held 5 Hooded Mergansers. Sundown Road Pond hosted 2 Common Snipe and a lone Swamp Sparrow. Zion Road Pond, seemingly always the best location in this part of the County, had 1 Red-headed Woodpecker, 11 Ring-necked Duck, 4 Bufflehead, 8 Ruddy Ducks, and the usual assortment of American Coots, Canada Geese, and Mallards. Laytonsville Pond was even more barren than usual, with about 300 Canada Geese and 1 Great Blue Heron. At Lake Needwood I saw 8 Ring-necked Duck, 75 Canada Geese, 18 Ruddy Duck, 1 Bufflehead, and 25 Mallard. The highlights of the day had to be the Red-headed Woodpecker and the 2 Common Snipe. =================================================================== On Sunday, 18 January, Fran and I birded the boardwalk in North Beach, Calvert County, for the following species: 200 Common Goldeneye 100 Greater Scaup 5 Lesser Scaup 18 Canvasback 1 Black Scoter 6 Surf Scoter 1 Oldsquaw 1 Red-breasted Merganser 15 Horned Grebe 25 Mallard Moving down-County to the nuclear generating plant at Calvert Cliffs we noted: 150 Oldsquaw 50 Greater Scaup 2 Red-breasted Merganser 70 Common Goldeneye 20 Bufflehead 1 Common Loon Finally, at Solomon's Island, we had: 2 Fried Oyster Sandwiches 100 French Fries On the way home from Solomon's, very near the entrance to the Battle Creek Cypress Swamp Park, we saw a flock of 18 American Tree Sparrows in a field-bordering hedgerow. =================================================================== This morning, Monday, 19 January, we trucked up to Cecil County to the Cecil County Landfill in search of "pink-legged gulls." Alas there were none there, but we did see 2 Lesser Black-backed Gulls amidst the usual dump habitues. If you get to North East to bird, consider Jean Marie's Restaurant in town. Cheap, decent food, and a busy local crowd! Tips of the hat to Gary Griffith, Maurice Barnhill, Paul Pisano, and Ottavio Janni for kindly helping us to see that there were no pink-legged gulls at the dump. Grin...good to see you folks, as always. Cheers, Norm =============== Norm Saunders Colesville, MD osprey@ari.net