I birded Pt Lookout this morning from dawn to about 12:30 in the afternoon. 
Early morning found only a few ducks at the lower end of the point. These 
were mostly Buffleheads and Long-tailed Ducks. A couple of Gannets were up 
and flying near the point. At first ,2 Brown Pelicans flew by the  buoy 
beyond the lighthouse and up the Potomac. About 10 minutes later 7 more 
followed the first pair. Looking in the bay to the north, I could see a 
large number of birds on the water north of the fishing pier. I headed up to 
the pier and found a large mixed flock of birds that consisted of Lesser and 
Greater Scaup, several hundred Surf Scoters, 10 Black Scoters, 6 
White-winged Scoters,  about 40 Common Goldeneye, a few Red-breasted 
Mergansers, Horned Grebes and Common Loons and the one King Eider.

There was one immature Goldeneye that was rather odd looking. The bird was 
rather far into its molt from juvenile plumage to first spring. The head was 
mostly complete and seemed to have a purplish hue in the morning light, 
while the adult Commons were obviously greenish and other immature birds 
still looked brownish. The face spot was not round, it was triangular in 
shape but smaller in size than I would expect in Barrow's as it did not 
extend up above the eye. The head was blockier than the Commons in the area. 
It still retained much of the brown patterning on the flanks, so the side 
pattern was not helpful. While still looking at this bird and trying 
unsuccessfully to digiscope it with my cell phone I heard someone behind me 
and found it to be a Natural Resources Police officer. I had parked my car 
at the closed gate at the entrance to the fishing pier and he had come out 
to ask me to move it. Although there wasn't a no parking sign on the gate 
(this was placed on the gate later in the morning) I was told that I wasn't 
allowed to park there. We discussed the nature of my studies and he offered 
to call in for permission to let me stay. I declined due to problems it 
would cause if I was allowed to park there while others were chased off. He 
related an incident from Saturday when someone else had parked at the gate 
and they were unable to drive in to handle a photographer and his completely 
nude model in the early afternoon. Although intrigued and interested in 
letting him talk, I told him that I was making notes of one bird and asked 
for a few minutes to complete the task. When I turned back to the bay I 
found all of the ducks in flight. I was unable to relocate the odd duck 
again despite trying with a good deal of effort throughout the rest of the 
morning.

From there I headed over to the boat launch area to find a very cooperative 
Eared Grebe swimming among the floating piers. I managed to get some good 
photos of the bird when the officer came up to talk to me about some more 
about yesterday's incident. We talked a few minutes more and then he boarded 
the police boat and sailed off. About that time JB Churchill arrived and got 
the same rewarding views of the grebe. Another officer drove up and talked 
about the birds and yesterday's incident (it was quite the topic of choice 
for these guys, I must say). JB had related that he refound the Eider at the 
point so we headed there to look for it again and to see if the odd 
goldeneye had tagged along. As I stated we failed to find the bird but were 
able to show a nice elderly woman her life look at the eider.

We headed up to the causeway to look over the ducks there. Although we 
couldn't find the goldeneye, we did see that there was an Eared Grebe on the 
bay. Looking at my camera, I was sure that its plumage wasn't the same as 
the one that I photographed. We scanned the remaing flock here, only finding 
more of what I had reported from first light. JB drove off to head for a few 
stops before driving home to western MD. I took one last look at the grebe 
to be sure it was still on the bay and headed back to the boat dock. Sure 
enough, the grebe was still swimming close to the shore inside the piers. 
There are definately 2 Eared Grebes in the area.

I took one more drive to the point and found most of the ducks had moved on. 
They all seemed to be on the bay side north of the fishing pier. A quick 
scan of the bouy in the bay showed two Great Cormorants, one adult and one 
juvenile bird. It was then that I joined JB and headed north towards home. I 
spent nearly all of my time looking at the water birds and trying to 
relocate the odd goldeneye, so I had very few land birds to report. All of 
the usual suspects were present but I did not look for the White-crowned 
Sparrows that were reported two weeks ago. All in all, it was an enjoyable 
day to be outside.

Ed Boyd
Westminster, MD