Hi Folks,

I was able to get out for a while yesterday between snow storms,
visiting Sandy Point State Park and Swan Creek.  Highlights were
CACKLING GOOSE and AM TREE SPARROW at the former, and RED-THROATED
LOONs at the latter.

The gate at Sandy Point was open when I arrived at about 9:30 a.m.,
and the roads were plowed, single lane, all the way back to the point.
 The only other people there were two heavy equipment operators moving
snow.  Once out at the point, I noticed that a good portion of the
upper beach, into the grass, had been wind-swept and bare, and this is
where a lot of sparrows were.  Very quickly I spotted an AMERICAN TREE
SPARROW foraging on the bare ground, and I wanted to get some
digiscopes, so quickly set up the scope, finding a second Tree Sparrow
and an attractive FOX SPARROW in between them.

There were about 125 Canada Geese on the upper beach, and they headed
towards the water as I got out of the car.  When I eventually scanned
the flock, I found the diminutive RICHARDSON'S CACKLING GOOSE among
them, so took a few digiscopes of it as well.

I took the woodland trail to get to the more western beach and
jetties, and here the snow ranged in depth from about a foot to over
three feet, subject to the whims of the bayside winds.  A SAPSUCKER
mewed from the trees, my first ever at this park despite more than 50
visits.  When I got to the beach I emptied out my boots which had been
topped in the deep drifts, and then scanned the rafts of ducks,
finding a pair of GADWALL, half a dozen CANVASBACKs, some GOLDENEYE,
RUDDY DUCKs and a hen RED-BREASTED MERGANSER among the ubiquitous
scaup and Buffleheads.  With virtually no wind, the bay was quite flat
and I was able to study the close-in scaup rafts, finding the mix to
be about 3 to 1 in favor of Greaters over Lessers.  Surprisingly, I
found no Long-tailed Ducks today.  Five BONAPARTE'S GULLs followed a
fishing boat in the company of many other gulls.

As I wrapped up my two-hour visit, there were the two Tree Sparrows,
still in the company of the Fox Sparrow, not far from where they were
first seen.

I called up the Swan Creek facility to see if the road down to the
wetland had been plowed, and after getting an earfull of "you should
have seen this place when we got here..." I got the yes answer I was
hoping for.  I spent about an hour here, gawking at the four-foot snow
drifts and the six-foot walls of snow lining the road to the wetland.
The path out to the beach had not been plowed, but I was still able to
scope the Patapsco River from a couple different vantage points, with
my best finds being a single HORNED GREBE and SEVEN RED-THROATED
LOONs.  Ed Carlson and I had seen as many as three on previous visits,
but I think this is my highest count anywhere in the county.  With
this year looking a lot like 2003, I will be very disappointed if we
don't get some Red-necked Grebes here in the next few weeks.

It's back to the shoveling this morning, but it was a nice break with
the calm air and mild conditions yesterday.

Stan Arnold
Ferndale (AA Co.)
 (prefered address)