Celebrated my return to bipedalism by spending all morning here. 
Started early listening for woodcock, then counted along all Hunting Quarter 
Rd (one of my normal winter count routes) to evaluate the effect of this 
winter's weather on bird populations and then returning through the fields.
       Not a bad day-50 species.  Highlights were 3 Gadwall, 13 Am. Wigeon, 
25 (down from 59 yesterday) Ring-necked Ducks, an Am Coot (also here 
yesterday), a Wild Turkey calling briefly, a Killdeer flying overhead, a
Greater Yellowlegs, 2 woodcock peenting near Sycamore Landing Rd., 3 Barred 
Owls, and a singing Pine Warbler in one of the planted pine groves.
          It's too early to fully measure the impact of this winter on 
birds,but in 6 winter counts along Hunting Quarter Rd my average Carolina 
Wren number was 18.  Today I had only had 4.  However, I was surprised to 
find 4 Winter Wrens.  It is just the start of their spring migration so they 
may have been migrants, but if they were winter birds they suffered less 
damage than the carolinas.

Paul Woodward
Fairfax City, VA