A Sparrow's Return
The largest land set-aside deal in Maryland's history has created a living laboratory in Kent County on Maryland's eastern shore. 5200-acre Chino Farms is now home to a number of natural resource experiments that include restoring an ancient prairie and the Sparrows that once lived there. Dr. Doug Gill has a Massachusetts M.D. to thank for his success at Chino Farms, Henry Sears, who continued to buy up the Chester River waterfront property with the sole goal of preserving it forever for the people of Maryland.

Last Stand at Shady Side
They say it was Tropical Storm Agnes in '72 that started the long, slow decline of the Chesapeake and the way of life of so many watermen who fished the bay. Then MSX and Dermo infected the oyster bars and the water got worse. The grasses started to disappear from the bottom and then the crabs and fish left, too. Now, watermen from the Chesapeake's western shore have gathered together in a small town called Shady Side to see if the Chesapeake and their way of life can be saved.

Search for the Saw-whet
DNR ecologist Dave Brinker travels the state in an effort to locate, capture, tag and release as many of these tiny owls as he can. Brinker's annual census of the bird will help resource management officials track the population and migration numbers of this important species.