Hi all,

I did Davidsonville Park, and the surrounding area for the Bowie CBC on New
Year's Day.  The river was extremely high and prevented access to some of
the good habitat I hoped to check.  Nonetheless there were good numbers of
birds still around.  Best bird was an AMERICAN TREE SPARROW that presented
itself beautifully from the vegetation surrounding the pond at the old
quarry.  A brown thrasher also appeared along with a creeper and 5 golden
crowned kinglets.  In the marsh were approx 225 canada geese with 4 hooded
mergansers and an unexpected ruddy duck.  After some searching I located the
kestrel that hunts the fields off of Gov. Bridge Road.  Perhaps most
intriguing of the count was the 8 white-crowned sparrows that were in the
thick vegetation on the side of the service road along rt. 50 mixed in with
house sparrows.  This is the same place where Dan Haas and I located several
white-crowns for last year's count and the only reliable place I know of in
the county where they are a sure find.  Disappointing misses were savannah
sparrow and field sparrow both of which I usually see in Davidsonville Park
in high numbers.  I was also hoping for snipe, but the mudflats were flooded
out.

Good Birding and Happy New Year
Chris Murray