Rental - Cute 2BR, 1 bath cottage half-block from Bay. Off-street parking, screened porch, central air, W/D, dishwasher, fenced yard. Cedarhurst. Community playground, pier, marina, clubhouse. $1,250/mo. furnished or not. Available July 1. 301-675-9526.

Call it luck, or call it a nose for news: a journalist’s ability to sense a good story. Whatever you call it, Katie Blunt has it, and it’s taking her to college in North Carolina.     The Severna Park High School senior was in class, watching a documentary on the Lost Boys, when a visiting teacher noted that a group of these Sudani refugees lived on his street.

The latest addition to my fleet of boats I’ve built or restored is a 16-foot strip sea kayak. This was a two-winter project requiring some of the skills I learned when building my 16-foot strip canoe. However, this project required having to scarf all strips for added strength and building a deck to fit snugly over the hull. The deck was built on the same form as the hull, but the trick was maintaining the shape so that when attached to the hull, it could be glued and sealed.

Each year, thousands of citizens report their bird sightings to the Christmas Bird Count, the longest-running citizen science project in the world. This year researchers are hoping that citizens will take this bird sighting zeal from land to sea.