Mallard

A warm, sunny day near the water, a picnic lunch and the sound of community bands playing favorites -- what more could you ask for?Downs Park will be the site Sunday for an afternoon of music as the county celebrates Maryland Community Band Day.Eight community-based concert bands from all over the state will be performing 45-minute sets in the bayside amphitheater. Big band tunes, classical, contemporary and Broadway tunes, and traditional marches will be played.The day will begin at noon with the Calvert Community Band.

OCEAN PINES -- Elizabeth Showalter was an occasional duck feeder, stopping by the Southgate ponds now and then with a loaf of bread. That was until last summer, when she saw the little mallard she calls Mrs. Bill.Mrs. Bill has only half a bill. Mrs. Showalter could see immediately that the little duck wasn't getting her share of the bread."Once I saw her, that was it. She would peck the bread and it would roll away from her. It was really heart-rending," says Mrs. Showalter, who had polio as a child and wears braces on both legs.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski's effort to delay tougher federal regulation of the hunting of mallards reared in captivity -- a sport that draws lobbyists and members of Congress to Maryland's Eastern Shore -- has been derailed by her colleagues.When the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced plans in June to review regulation of duck shooting, hunters and their Capitol Hill allies saw a move toward more stringent control of a practice now subject to minimal federal regulation.Ms.

To paraphrase the old saying: If something looks like a wild duck, flies like a wild duck, and sounds like a wild duck, then it must be a wild duck. But these days, maybe not. Maybe it's just a mallard.In appearance, few of the world's waterfowl surpass a drake mallard, with its glossy green head, white neck ring and iridescent, purplish-chestnut feathers merging into the creams and pearly grays of its breast and back.And virtually alone among the 20 or so species of ducks that grace the Chesapeake Bay, the mallard has been increasing in number.

Almost three decades ago, when Ray Marshall of Newcomb was a fledgling waterfowl hunting guide on the Eastern Shore, the Canada goose was king. But these days, with the goose kill restricted and goose hunters hesitant to hire guides, Marshall has been taking a different approach to waterfowl hunting."

Harford County plans to buy 24 undeveloped lots in the Forest Greenssubdivision near Perryman because the land, where methane and lead recently have been detected, was once a county dump site.JeffersonBlomquist, deputy county attorney, said the former dump was discovered in November 1990 when Mallard Landing Joint Venture, a developer, began preparing ground for home construction."The subdivision was approved to actually be built on a landfill,but it wasn't discovered until the contractor installing utilities and roads started digging up trash," said Blomquist.

Danny and Barbara Bystrak's wooded land slopes to the marsh by Jug Bay and stretches 13 acres along Mallard Lane in Lothian. The Bystrakslike the land as it is and want it to stay this way forever.Danny Bystrak sat at his old backyard picnic table a week ago reviewing the paperwork that could accomplish this through a conservation restriction. Behind him, the bay shone pearl gray through the stand of cherry, red oak, beech, tulip, sassafras."I just feel that people take and take all the time," said Bystrak, a soft-spoken man who works for the state Fish and Wildlife Service.

When last we left Daisy Duck, she was huddled in a nest under a bushin a backyard in Linthicum, sitting on 10 eggs.The mallard was still there early Thursday evening when Dena LeCompte went out for a look. Daisy was at her post, but LeCompte saw that now she had company. Three little duckling faces poked up from behind her, getting theirfirst fuzzy glimpses of the world.Early the next morning, LeCompte went out for another look. She found the brood had grown overnight from three to 10 ducklings.

In a duck's-eye view, the LeCompte backyard in Linthicum looked likeas good a place as any to start a family.Here was this nice backyard in-ground pool for splashing and swimming and some bushes for privacy. When you're a wild duck and suburban sprawl is swallowing yournatural digs, you do what you can.Now, Daisy the duck hunkers down in her nest hidden in the bushesin the backyard on Orchard Road. She sits and sits. Beneath her are at least 10 eggs.The question is: Did the wild mallards adopt theLeCompte family or did the family adopt the wild mallards?

WESTON, Conn. -- Robert McCloskey was living on Myrtle Street in Boston and each morning walked through Copley Square and up Huntington Avenue to his art class on St. Botolph Street. First, he had to walk across the Public Garden, which was a favorite place of his.He did not yet have the idea for his small and famous book that is set there. Fifty years later, however, the story he wrote and the pictures he drew have become so well known that many Americans who have never heard of Oliver Twist know Mr. and Mrs. Mallard and their offspring, Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack and Quack.