Greetings all;

I spent most of yesterday (11/8/04) wandering western Kent County.  At dawn I
struck out at Great Oak Pond -- Lots of Ruddy Ducks, four Pintails, a few
Canada Geese (they were all flying around the area) and one Snow Goose.

Driving the back roads produced two huge mixed flocks of "blackbirds."
Thousands in corn stubble scarfing up left-behind corn kernels.  Most of the flocks
were Common Grackles, followed in numbers by Red-wings then starlings and
some Brown-headed Cowbirds.  Several flocks of Canada Geese were devoid of
Cackling.

At Eastern Neck things were a bit more interesting.  At the little marsh at
the parking area just after the bridge I flushed three immature (first year)
BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERONS which flew to the shoreline outside the refuge for
good scope looks.  A single Bonaparte's Gull was resting on the exposed mud flat
on the bay side along with a lone Dunlin a few Ring-bills, a couple dozen
Forster's Terns and ten Killdeer.  Later, the same area yielded a single Great
Egret.

Tubby Cove was full of stiff-tails, a thousand or more Lesser Scaup, lots
more unidentified Scaup and at least one Greater Scaup.  Bogles Wharf had few
birds -- a few more Ruddies, a couple of American Black Ducks, thirteen Forster's
Terns and a few Laughing Gulls.

A walk along the butterfly trail at headquarters turned up lots of Song and
one Savannah Sparrow and an Eastern Meadowlark (well -- it was silent so I
suppose it was a suspected EAME).  The observation deck produced a single Common
Loon (my first of the season) on the bay, about 50 Bufflehead and thirty Scaup
(sp).  The line of trees at the last turn before reaching the HQ building held
Song Sparrows, two Field Sparrows and a Ruby-crowned Kinglet.

A return in the early afternoon to Great Oak Pond produced several hundred
Snow Geese but a 45 minute scan with the scope gave me no goodies.  No
shorebirds.  It seems I will never get the small geese for my state list.  As Rick Blom
used to say -- it takes mindless persistence.  The search goes on.

Lou Nielsen
Reisterstown, MD