It’s loud out there in frog land.         Wood frogs, one of the season’s earliest risers, already have a new generation of tadpoles swimming in vernal pools. That’s the March 11 report of Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary volunteer Mark Priest posted on the Sanctuary’s webpage sightings link, jugbay.org/wildlife_sightings. Follow the link to see Priest’s short video of half-inch-long wrigglers.     Those tadpoles are the...

Forty million Americans — about 13 percent of us — trace our roots to Ireland. But on St. Patrick’s Day, everybody’s Irish. We dress up like leprechauns, feast on corn beef and cabbage and drink beer green.     Green beer? How Irish is that?     “We don’t do green beer in Ireland,” says Dublin-born Colm Coyne, general manager of the Irish Channel in Crofton.     “You’ll only find that in a...

Chesapeake Country waterways are swan lakes from November to March, as migratory tundra swans weighing as much as 20 pounds move in.     Some 18,000 of the big birds make Maryland their home. Dabblers, they tip bottom-up to feed on Bay grasses and small clams. They like winter wheat, barley and rye, too, and some of the swans will feed in fields.     These are their last days with us, as the elegant birds fatten and gather to begin their flight back north....

James Barrett of Westin Annapolis is up for Maryland Chef of the Year What does it take to be Maryland’s Chef of the Year?         A concoction like this: The broth is daffodil yellow, screaming of spring, contradicting the misconception that chicken and dumplings is reserved for the cold of winter. Instead of big risen pillows, the dumplings are clever little Italian gnocchi. The geometrical cuts of ­chicken, moist all the way through, have seared...