Betsy Kehne had been waiting for three decades for the bird perched a stone’s throw from her window.     At five years old, she’d grieved at learning that the pesticide DDT was pushing bald eagles to extinction.     DDT was banned in 1972. By the end of the century, the number of nesting eagles in Maryland had increased sixfold to 260 pairs. Today, more than 2,000 bald eagles make their homes in the Chesapeake region, so that seeing them soaring...

Ann Widdifield’s Passing Through Shady Side, published with AuthorHouse in 2013 Billy Poe’s African-Americans of Calvert County, published by Acadia House in 2008 James Johnston’s From Slave Ship to Harvard, published by Fordham University Press in 2012 by Sandra Olivetti Martin, Bay Weekly Editor, with Terri Boddorff and Cameron Caswell, Anne Arundel County Public Library; Beverly Izzy and Robbie McGaughran, Calvert County Public Library People from Africa and from...

The great blue heron’s return to Chesapeake Country and consequent mating occurs mid-February, bestowing these majestic birds the nickname, lovebirds.     “Their local nickname, along with love birds, is Johnny Crane,” said Mike Callahan, president of Southern Maryland Audubon Society.     Herons, however, are not cranes. Cranes fly with necks extended straight, for example, while the herons’ extended necks follow an S-curve. Heron stalk...

“Count these records,” said Charlie after introductions.     The year was 1969. The records were five-inch vinyl-printed cardboard squares recorded by our candidate in the Northern Virginia district where I lived with my parents. The square records would be dropped off at every house to deliver his campaign message.     Hundreds were loose in each big three-foot-square box. I started counting. I was fairly nimble at age 26, but the older lady next to...