Hi Everyone,

The following report is from Brad Lanning, who had a productive day (Sunday, 11/30) searching for waterfowl in Washington Co.:

"...After checking the City Park, Williamsport, and Dam #4, where all was slow, we then headed to Greenbrier where we hit our first jackpot.  There were 6 Red-breasted Mergansers, 6 Greater Scaup, 1 Long-tailed Duck, and over 35 Horned Grebes.  We checked them well for Eared to no avail.  The pavilion is great for observation in the rain!  Then on to a very quite Catoctin, where no birds were seen?  Then a bee-line to Fort Ritchie, where we hit our next jackpot.  5 Ring-billed Gulls, a raft of about 30 scaup being mostly lesser with a few Greater mixed in, Coot and Pied-billed Grebe, Kingfisher flying around, and a new high count of Red-breasted Mergansers at 15, and another 20 or so Horned Grebes, again checking for Eared with no avail.  Over 60 on the day for Wash.County.  Also a new one day county high count!  On the way to Big Pool we did a quick check of some of my favorite little ponds in the county, Black Rock Golf Coarse.  There we found 5
 Canvasbacks and 1 Greater Scaup at the big pond viewable from the road.  A little further down, at the little pond, we found 3 Bufflehead.  A quick stop at Big Pool's boat ramp produced a flock of over 20 Hooded Mergansers.  Racing daylight , we took off for our last stop of the day, Blair's Valley Lake, where we found what I was hoping for all day- Surf Scoters.  We had a flock of 5 birds on the left side of the lake loosely associating with 4 Red-breasted Mergansers.  One of the Surf Scoters was a strikingly bright male, my first bright male for the county.  My second county record for Surf Scoter. These birds may be still around today or tomorrow. brad"

Good birding,

Bill

Bill Hubick
Pasadena, Maryland

http://www.billhubick.com