Way Downstream

In Annapolis, the Maryland Transportation Authority says it has a four-part “comprehensive plan” to ease congestion Memorial Day weekend on the Bay Bridge: Get E-ZPass; Go Early, Stay Late; Call 1-877-bayspan; and Keep Your Cool and Pace Your Space. (Sounds like we motorists, not the transportation bureaucrats, are doing all the work here) …

In St. Mary’s County, eagles and other birds of prey recovering from injuries will soon have a new place to recuperate at the Back to the Wild Rescue & Rehab Center in California. A new, 96-by-64-foot flight cage will house recovering and orphaned eagles, hawks, owls and osprey. Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative donated labor and materials, including retired utility poles, to build the L-shaped flight cage. The L-shape allows the eagles to practice banking and making turns while flying. Eagles and other birds can start moving in after construction ends in spring 2007 …

In Virginia, a dock design by real estate broker Greg Garrett on the York River has triggered a ruckus in the General Assembly. We can see why. According to the Daily Press, he’s attempting to build: three boathouses; a gazebo; 11 slips; a 149-foot-long pier with 50-foot finger piers; a floating dock and a 45-foot-long boat ramp for small sailboats and jet skis. And did we mention his observation tower to look down on it all? …

Also in Virginia, Godspeed, a re-creation of one of the three ships that brought English settlers to the Atlantic Coast in 1607, left Jamestown this week for a tour of Eastern ports. Closest to us is Baltimore’s Inner Harbor June 9-12 …

Our Creature Feature comes from South Africa, where the wealthy folks with ocean-front homes near Cape Town are battling with very hungry invaders; baboons. Everyone lived in harmony until recently, but now roving packs of the fearless, five-foot-tall monkeys are barging into homes in search of food.

A woman told Reuters that they open the door or come through windows and head to the refrigerator. “You can be sitting in your front room with a bowl of fruit on the table, and a baboon will come through the door and steal it,” another homeowner said.