I went up to look for the Prettyboy Redpolls today, but did not see 
any sign of them. I spent about an hour around the designated area 
between Gunpowder and Cotter Roads, i.e. on Clipper Mill Rd just west 
of the bridge.

Then I spent about an hour by the next bridge about a mile north on 
Gunpowder Rd, walking about 1/2 mile west, which I believe is part of 
"Hemlock Gorge." It has lots of hemlocks and is a sort of gorge by 
eastern standards. I need to try that in warbler season. It looks and 
feels a lot like some Western Maryland locations. Then, turning south, 
I spent about an hour around Gunpowder Road about a mile north of 
Beckleysville Road, which I call Crossbill Hill, because I had 
sightings of crossbills two or three times in the invasion winter 
around January 1998. Finally I went over to the boat launch on Spooks 
Hill Rd.

It's all a lot of nice habitat with a boreal feel to it, but there 
were very few birds. The best I could come up with was one Fox 
Sparrow; a nice fly-over of about 30 Tundra Swans; two amorous 
Red-shouldered Hawks; no waterfowl except 4 Canada Geese; 30-40 
Juncos; a smattering of Song Sparrows, White-throats, Chickadees, 
Titmice, and Golden-crowned Kinglets; and one each Hairy, Downy and 
Pileated Woodpecker.

Steve Sanford
Randallstown, Baltimore County
scartan^at^verizon^dot^net