Saturday morning, Fran and I went up to Frederick County to explore some areas west of New Design Road and, hopefully, to find some grasspipers. While the areas we explored (Doubs Road, Cap Stine Road, others) are definitely worth revisiting later this fall and into the winter, we did not, alas, find any Upland Sandpipers, American Golden Plovers or Buff-breasted Sandpipers. The best bird of the morning turned out to be a Blue Grosbeak seen at the top of a tree on the south side of Lilypons Road. This morning (Sunday) we wanted to follow up on reports posted on Marvadel the past several days regarding Black Terns in the Potomac River off Jones Point. We arrived about 9 am and did indeed find at least half a dozen Black Terns flying over the distant hydrilla mats, out in the Potomac River. The birds were, for the most part, in Maryland waters (hurray! new state bird!) but they did at times fly north far enough to cross the District Line into DC waters (double-hurray! new DC bird!!). You should know that these birds are definitely scope birds and even then not a great view. We watched them long enough to pin down all the relevent field marks and also tallied numbers of Caspian Terns, Forster's Terns, Great Blue Herons, and Double-crested Cormorants bobbing around in the river or on the dense hydrilla mats. Finally, for those of you who (like us) have been procrastinating about getting downtown to see the Virginia Rail, be aware that it was seen by us this morning at 10:30 at the Enid Haupt Gardens. We searched for almost 45 minutes before finally locating the bird outside the gardens under the bushes by the main gate, facing Independence Avenue. Best, Norm =============== Norm Saunders Colesville, MD osprey@ari.net