
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 4, 1995                   TAG: 9503060010
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CATHRYN MCCUE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

THE DUCKS DON'T STOP HERE

Twenty years ago, a group of local birders would drive out during Christmas week to a couple of water holes called "Hutchinsons Ponds" in southern Botetourt County.

It was prime duck habitat - remote, marshy, quiet. There was one farm and no houses, recalls Troutville orchardist Barry Kinzie, one of the birders.

Back then, as part of the Audubon Society's nationwide annual tally, the birders often counted 100 ducks in a day, identifying 10 or 12 species.

"Now we just don't get that many," Kinzie says. These days they find only 15 or 20 birds, of only a few species. "Now, those birds aren't dead. They have just flown on to try to find habitat elsewhere where they could winter."

The reason? Another species - suburbanites - began building homes around the ponds, and the winter habitat in Daleville turned into a bedroom community.

by CNB