Waterfowl

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.

Two Baltimore marinas and the BOAT/U.S. Foundation for Boating Safety have begun a pilot program aimed at helping to save the lives of children who go boating.Working with the foundation, Baltimore Marine Center and Old Bay Marina will lend life jackets to children 12 and under in an effort to promote the use of life jackets and to ensure that children are fitted with the correct size of flotation device.Last year the Coast Guard changed life jacket requirements for recreational boats under 16 feet to require a wearable life jacket for each person on board.

Judges will select the winner of the 2002-2003 Maryland Migratory Waterfowl Stamp Design Contest on Saturday at the Patuxent Research Refuge National Wildlife Visitor Center, 12100 Beech Forest Road, Laurel. Thirty-eight artists from around the state have submitted designs for the state's $6 duck stamp, which is required for waterfowl hunters. Proceeds from the sales go to waterfowl research and habitat improvements. Information: www.dnr.state. md.us/wildlife/duckstamp. Around town Genealogical society: The Anne Arundel Genealogical Society will hold its annual banquet meeting at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Kaufmann's restaurant, 329 Gambrills Road, Gambrills.

Preliminary statistics indicate a 30 percent increase in wintering Canada geese in Maryland, so now it's time to look to the Far North. It holds the crucial key to future honker regulations.The survey completed last week indicated we had 332,000 wintering Canadas as compared with 251,000 a year ago, but Department of Natural Resources waterfowl chief Larry Hindman stresses these figures are preliminary though probably accurate.Hindman is playing it conservative because a review of survey results turned up a significant difference in scaup numbers -- and he doesn't want premature optimism, though he isn't looking for much of a difference in the final goose count.

Bel Air. -- There comes a moment when a serious environmentalist has to suck it up and kill something.In England all mute swans belong to the queen, and anyone harming one is liable to penalty. Despite our unseemly fascination with the common behavior of the royal family, we are no longer a crown colony, so nothing except public opinion stands in the way of disposing of the mute swans that havepopulated the Chesapeake Bay. Public opinion mistakenly favors the swans, which are large, graceful, white birds that catch and hold the eye.Maryland's most obvious pair of mute swans spends most of the year in the small pond at the east end of the Bay Bridge, where they serve as nature's billboard, the first tangible proof that one is on the Eastern Shore.

On Wednesday at 5 a.m., the fall seasons for recreational and charterboat rockfish fishermen open in Maryland waters of Chesapeake Bay, with a minimum size of 18 inches and a maximum of 36 inches.This year, the recreational season is expected to have two parts, with the first session running through Oct. 26 and a creel limit of two fish per person over that period.If the allowable harvest of 456,747 pounds has not been caught by Oct. 26, then the season will be extended with a creel limit of two fish per day per person until the quota has been reached.

Based on the fall flight forecast, this was supposed to be the best autumn in many for duck hunting. After all, some 105 million birds are expected to migrate south nationwide, the highest number since the forecast began 50 years ago. However, waterfowl biologists said, unseasonably warm weather has slowed their transit and dry conditions in many areas might cause the birds to alter "traditional migration behavior." "Many ducks and geese won't move south until cold weather freezes their water sources," said Dr. Bruce Batt, chief biologist for Ducks Unlimited, an international conservation association deeply involved in the creation and restoration of waterfowl habitat.

OYSTERBACK, Maryland -- As excitement over the annual Decoy Jamboree Weekend continues to mount, a prominent Eastern Shore judge, decoy Collector and Socialite prepares to judge an entirely different event that annually creates lots of excitement among downtown merchants and waterfowl decoy lovers everywhere who come to Watertown just for this annual excitement.The Decoy Jamboree Weekend Special Supplement caught up with Judge Findley F. Fish at his palatial and tasteful waterfront gracious home in order to interview him about his part in Decoy Jamboree Weekend this coming month in Watertown.

The canvasback duck - a once-abundant bird prized for its majestic looks as well as its delicious meat - has become rarer in Maryland, according to a new state study. Department of Natural Resources officials counted 13,700 canvasbacks during their annual midwinter waterfowl survey, which tracks about 20 species of ducks and geese that fly south each winter. That marked a precipitous drop from the four previous years, when canvasback numbers hovered between 30,000 and 40,000 during the annual count.

As I walked out of the marsh -- mud sucking at my waders, shotgun cased, decoys bagged and that damned dog constantly underfoot -- I knew another winter morning had been warm, windless and wasted.What had become of the promise of duck season?Late last summer, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service predicted record fall flights of ducks for most of the United States, based on high breeding population and production surveys.There was, however, a caveat in the annual USFWS waterfowl population report: Nesting areas in Eastern Canada had been inundated by rainfall and snow melt last spring, and breeding success could be off because of flooded habitat.