I live along the North East River and have seen these massive rafts of ducts 
out on the North East River below Red Point.  They appear as a black cloud on 
the water.  They're packed very tight (reminding me of Coot) with gulls 
circling overhead.  I was assuming Scaup also, but they don't appear to be 
diving.  I've lived here for 23 years and birded this area for 10 years before 
that and have never seen this before.





>===== Original Message From Maryland Birds & Birding 
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>I stopped down at the North East Town Park real quick before picking my son
>up at school. The Ice is getting thick on the River. When I arrived there was 
a
>swarm of gulls heading out toward Charlestown and still about 1500 
Ring-billed Gulls
>left on the Ice. I just missed the good ones by about 5 minutes. It seems 
like from
>12 noon on to 3 pm is the time to be down at the park.
>When I looked down past Charlestown, where some open water was, there
>was a massive amount of birds.There was thousands of Gulls and there were 
thousands
>of Ducks. I couldn't identify anything at that distance. One flock of Ducks 
was so
>big, it looked like a black cloud over the river. My guess would be Scaup.
>Sean McCandless

Parke