I noticed something on the drive down. Everyone, with reason, talks about the foliage of fall. All those brilliant and vivid golds, oranges, and reds on the trees, mixed in with the remaining greens. But in the spring, and lasting for about the same amount of time, one can notice a similar display on the trees as new growth bursts out of its protective coverings. Golds and reds among the many shades of yellow-green, with the occasional splash of pink, white, or purple from an ornamental tree that managed to escape into the wild. The colors are rather less “saturated”, of course, but they are there if you are willing to look.

Anyway, Baltimore has its own Washington Monument. Not as big as the one a short drive to the southwest (although designed by the same person), but it is the first monument erected to our first president, so there is that. It’s at the top of a hill in the Mount Vernon section, at the center of a small park / plaza. I did not go inside (I wanted to spend more time at the Walters Art Museum, which is just a block away).

A statue of Lafayette in the foreground

Hanging around the Inner Harbor, I discovered another reason to hate most birding guides and identifiers. I spotted this unusual duck:

Very odd….

Surely, something that distinctive should be easy to ID, right?

Wrong.

Asking for help, I was informed that there are quite a few literally Odd Ducks out there. Male mallards are known to be rather indiscriminate in their mating partners, so hybrids are more common that you’d think. And simple genetic mutations that cause interesting plumage patterns are also not unheard of.

But these sorts aren’t common enough to justify including them in standard field guides. Even when they are the ones that are most likely to send you to your guides for help. Perhaps there should be a notice in every Duck section that these oddities exist?

From its behavior (hanging around with other mallards), I’m going to say it was either a mallard hybrid or mutation.

By the way, I got photobombed by an ordinary Herring Gull……

You just want a nice picture of the Inner Harbor…..

Baltimore has enough old buildings (at least in the parts I visited), little parks, narrow streets of varying length, and general history that a website on the order of Forgotten New York might be of interest.

Oh, and why is Baltimore called “Charm City” anyway?