O.k., I may have discovered what is possibly the worst time ever to do  
a bit of birding around DC.  No great birding report here, just a  
funny story.  But I did nab my FOS assault team... :)

It was rather nice out there late this afternoon so I took a spin  
around Hains Point, gleefully set up my scope and was scanning the  
large raft of Scaups and Canada Geese looking for other duck  
visitors.  What I saw was a bunch of Lesser Scaups, about 80 Canada  
Geese and one Coast Guard response boat with a bow mounted .762- 
caliber gun speeding straight at me.  Naturally I stepped away from  
the scope and stood there wondering if they were indeed coming to say  
hi, and well, why?  Then I noticed the second USCG boat with fore AND  
aft-mounted machine guns coming toward me from another direction.  And  
did I mention the Coast Guard helicopter that very quickly was  
hovering overhead?

After chatting for a few minutes, I wholeheartedly agreed that it  
probably wasn't the best idea to be traipsing around DC with  
binoculars and a spotting scope just a few hours before the State of  
the Union Address - pretty much the top national security event held  
inside the U.S.  I had completely forgotten the State of the Union was  
tonight.

Oh well, it didn't look like there was anything special out on the  
river anyway.  I should mention that the crewmen were extremely polite  
and good-natured once they quickly saw that I was harmless.  They  
actually got a kick out of the whole event.  All due respect to those  
guys - they were pretty cool.

I think I'm right about the ID of the boat and the guns...I'm going to  
try not to develop too much of a life list of these folks...

Cheers,
Steve Hersey
Washington, DC