This morning at Violette's, I had the privilege of watching a female Common Merganser transport her brood of perhaps 11* downy merglets downstream, sometimes aboard her back, from time to time free-swimming, bobbing and bobbling; any that fell behind would shoot forward like bullets. The little group moved rapidly, not far from the shore. I was able to track them for a while, and later checked several downstream spots but did not see them again. (*They moved so much they were difficult to count--plus lousy light, wet optics, an umbrella; excuses, excuses.) 

The Yellow-rumps are warbling, the Pine Warblers are trilling, the Bluebells are peaking.

Lydia Schindler
Darnestown, Montgomery County