Spent yesterday birding my fave spots in Dorchester County. Quick rundown:

1) Choptank waterfront in Cambridge - At the end of Oakley Street the ducks
were abundant as usual. Mostly Canvasbacks, with a few Wigeons, and plenty
of Mallards (of course). A couple Buffleheads hung out along the far edge of
the group. Many Lesser Scaup came in to extremely close-range as well. For
anyone who wants point-blank looks at ducks this is the place to be. They're
fairly tolerant of VERY close approach as long as you're patient and slow. I
went over to Great Marsh Park after leaving Oakley Street and found a much
greater concentration of Scaup, with a smattering of Canvasbacks and
Buffleheads. Out farther into the river I counted more than 20 Goldeneyes,
and one female came in fairly close for not-totally-horrible pictures. A
pair of Surf Scoters also approached to a reasonable distance. From this
vantage looking across the river, at a really great distance, I watched the
movement of hundreds upon hundreds of Snow Geese

2) Blackwater NWR - Snow Geese in abundance! All along Key Wallace Drive
with Canada Geese. Hundreds. Couldn't pull out anything "more" interesting
with just my bins (scope is out of commission :( ) A pair of Red-Tailed
Hawks kept spooking the geese.There were numerous Killdeer along the edge of
Key Wallace Dr. Along the Marsh Trail in the refuge I found a group of 12
Fox Sparrows foraging in the path. The count is by far my personal high
count (which was previously...1). There were also plenty of Brown-Headed
Nuthatches, in fairly low branches for great photos, Goldfinches (no
Siskins), White-Throated Sparrows, a Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker, Flickers,
Red-Bellied, and Downy Woodeckers. The rest of the refuge was less
thrilling...had my personal LOW-count of Bald Eagles for the refuge with
only two.

3) Hooper's Island - Maybe not the BEST idea to take my two-wheel drive
Honda Civic down here after snow, because the lower reaches of Hooper's
Island Road (below the first bridge) were mostly hard-packed ice and I was
definitely nervous. Local drivers were not especially patient with my
cautious pace either, much to my frustration. BUT, down at the bridge (where
the road was thankfully clear) I found at least 20 Long-Tailed Ducks, a few
Buffleheads right next to the road, and a drake Common Goldeneye posed
point-blank ready for a picture, when another car zoomed by from the other
direction and he was GONE. No Grebes or Loons or Mergansers. Still a nice
stop, as it usually is.

-Jake Hall
 College Park, MD