Chesapeake Born

Ashes have been on my mind of late — the scattering of them, farewells to loved ones, both electing cremation. Read StoryPondering the journey of ‘X’ ... the journey of us

Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields … but in the quaking swamps. Read StoryBeauty and the bog

There are a lot of reasons why 40 years of Bay-saving hasn’t saved the Chesapeake Bay, but a dismaying example was on display recently in my h… Read StoryAn egregious gamble with Chesapeake sturgeon

In 2018, a Baltimore City environmental journalism student contacted Joan Maloof. Read StoryBaltimore’s forgotten forest, an emerald in the rough

I learned a lot from Tropical Storm Agnes, arguably the most impactful storm to hit the Chesapeake Bay in the several thousand years the curre… Read StoryTropical Storm Agnes: 50 years later, still the biggest story I ever covered

“The forgotten outdoorsmen of today are those who like to walk, hike, ride horseback or bicycle. … for them we must have trails.” — Message to… Read StoryTracks of history: Railroading’s gift to modern-day explorers

Confessions of an environmental studies prof: When I ask my university students to name the best ways to save the Chesapeake Bay and the plane… Read StoryCan you love your burger and the Chesapeake Bay at the same time?

The Bay is dead. Long live the Bay. Read StoryThe case for a Chesapeake 'style' Bay

Because I hail from nearby Federalsburg, I can confidently describe the little village of Hurlock on the Eastern Shore of Maryland as unprepos… Read StoryHeaded for Hurlock: The rhythm of Chesapeake migrations

When the rains began pelting the Chesapeake Bay’s six-state watershed with a scope and intensity not seen for centuries, I was in my third mon… Read StoryFrom Agnes to now: Perspectives from 50 years of reporting

This month I give you autumn distillations from kayaking the edges of the Chesapeake Bay: Read StoryA lazy paddle, a river of monarch butterflies and the wonder of the 'miracle bush'

The Chesapeake Bay has long inspired notable films, dating at least to 1965, when avid sailor and CBS news icon Walter Cronkite produced The S… Read StoryThe Twilight Estuary film: An oldie-but-goodie

Faithful readers know that I have become a beaver believer. For most of the time that the Chesapeake Bay has existed, beavers by the millions … Read Story‘God’s engineers’: How beavers can repair an ecosystem

The Sassafras River, mid-May. Tulip poplars and black locusts in full and fragrant blossom. Local watermen offloading tons of catfish as hungr… Read StoryWayne Gilchrest: outdoor teacher, congressman 'too good to be true'

Jam the cow has decided she feels like getting milked. A handsome Jersey, a breed prized for its high-quality milk, easy calving and all-aroun… Read StoryIn farming, small is beautiful, but can it also be profitable?

Water’s way: slow and swampy, spread out and oozy, soaking in, life affirming, purifying, beautifying. Read StoryTwo-wheeled meditations on watersheds

No surprise, I am a promiscuous hugger of trees. But what tree would I drive five hours to embrace? What single species would lure me to the o… Read StoryWill we be able to pull the American chestnuts out of the fire?

“Think globally, act locally.” It’s hard to improve on that environmental dictum of uncertain origin. Have broad vision and context, but start… Read StoryRemembering Russ Brinsfield, the quintessential farmer-scientist

“So you can enjoy this any time, but the rest of us have to wait till you invite us along.” Read StoryLet’s shore up efforts to make a Chesapeake national park

This is the story of a gift of Chesapeake waters, no less important than any bounty of seafood. Read StoryTale of skipjack captain and caper still worthy of praise

After three years in the literal middle of Chesapeake Bay, doing outdoor education from Smith Island for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation during … Read StoryIn praise of mudlarking, its treasures waiting for discovery

Behold the concrete road culvert: straight and narrow and lifeless, having whisked the previous day’s rains from oceans of hard-baked asphalt … Read StoryTo engineer is human; doing it right might require beavers

Just as an earthquake mercilessly exposes shoddy building standards, a crisis like the current pandemic lays bare societal flaws. Both present… Read StoryGrowth and the lesson of COVID: What have we learned?

Nearing yet another majestic tree, light and birdsong sifting through its boughs, I get my hopes up that it’s not doomed like so many we’ve pa… Read StoryIf we are to deserve our world, we must re-examine our living

Photographer Dave Harp and I began our cool, April morning paddle (kayaks 6 feet apart, of course) down one of the Chesapeake’s biggest ditche… Read StorySocial distancing at its finest now appearing on a website near you

The Man Who Planted Trees is the compelling tale by writer Jean Giano of his meeting a shepherd wandering the wrecked landscapes of France aft… Read StoryDo good – not just 'less bad' – if restoration is to gain any ground

 “We know that our high-technology society is handling our environment in a way that will be lethal for us. What we don’t know — and had bette… Read StoryAs Earth Day turns 50, it’s time to recycle that initial enthusiasm

They might seem an odd couple, Crassostrea virginica and Castor canadensis — the Eastern oyster and the North American beaver. Read StoryOf bivalves & beavers: Let’s leave our landscapes to these experts

I was just 33 when I met her, turning 50. A 40-year relationship ensued — intimate, though I shared her with so many others. And now we’re parting. Read StoryFox Island: Right where it should, and shouldn’t, have been

“…to see the running of the old eels and the young shad to the sea is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly li… Read StoryRachel Carson no stranger to the Chesapeake, its creatures

Always, I’ve assumed knowledge equals power. If you do the science that makes sense of a mysterious world, it enables you to comprehend your p… Read StoryIgnoring science won’t make looming climate calamity go away

In the beginning was the Word .… and the word was Full. Read StoryHere’s a word to the wise on Chesapeake Bay: Full

It was the best day I would spend in a “classroom,” drifting through the summer wetlands of the Patuxent River as the “professor” stood tall i… Read StoryChesapeake continues to be a classroom for its retired iconic educator

Notes to myself on preparing to teach my Chesapeake Bay course at Salisbury University for the 10th year: Read StoryLeave it to beavers: Species’ ability to alter land should be revisited

“Harry Hughes Horton.” Sounds good, don’t ya think? A missed opportunity that I’ll explain in a bit. Read StoryWhen it came to the Bay, Hughes was more than up to the challenge

In the spring of 1987, I made the best move of my life — to remote Smith Island, MD, whose fisherfolk had endured for more than three centurie… Read StoryLure of mainland tugs at roots – and hearts – of Smith Islanders

A tale of two gases: both colorless, odorless and essential to life; now also both imperiling life as humans boost them to unnatural levels. Read StoryTrickle up effect: Reducing Bay’s nitrogen will lower greenhouse gas level

“Why will you ask for other glories when you have soft crabs?” Read StoryHow can we understand a Chesapeake we’ve never seen?

Surveying the current wreckage of federal environmental policies, I’ve wondered: Close to half a century out from the first Earth Day — April … Read StoryWhat on Earth led to the failure of environmental ethics?

My hope for America’s future? With any luck it’ll be a yawn. Read StoryTime to put the pedal to the metal: Create bicycle-friendly cities

The essential landform around the Chesapeake Bay is peninsular, from Virginia’s Northern Neck between the Potomac and Rappahannock to virtuall… Read StoryWhether they’re coming or going, all Chesapeake islands have a tale to tell

It was a year ago, a sunny summer morning overlooking the Choptank River… We were discussing what it has all meant, studying the Chesapeake Ba… Read StoryOligotrophication! A big word for even bigger news, a Bay comeback

“Hey there, thanks for making my property worth even less.” You get these calls and emails when you make a movie that raises public awareness … Read StoryTime and tide wait for no one when dealing with rising sea level

I grew up middle class but land rich: roaming hundreds of acres of woods and marsh, hunting properties owned by my dad’s poultry company and h… Read StoryYou can own the Chesapeake’s riches without acquiring property

Combing the beach, I stoop to pick up an essay for my upcoming college nature writing class. It’s a reddish, roundish pebble, tumbling in the … Read StoryA Chesapeake portrait, painted by almost a thousand words

The piney woods stretching for miles around us smell springy, as warm winds melt the last of a big January snow. At the crest of a rise, Bobby… Read StoryHow much woods would a woodpecker need if it’s to succeed?

The phone number sticks in my memory, the number I called the most in some 35 years of environmental reporting for the Baltimore Sun. It wasn’… Read StoryAjax Eastman cared more for planting seeds of conservation than earning laurels

It’s a chill November morning, the rising sun sloshing light on the tree tops. Larry Walton and I are about a half-mile into the woods that li… Read StoryA walk in the woods with a different kind of forester

Come ride bikes with me. Don’t dismiss as idle our idyll through an ideal autumn “leafscape” today, for our pedaling shows the way to a better Bay. Read StoryWe need to shift gears on the pursuit of economic growth

If you’re not yet worried about Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s abandonment of Smart Growth, you might want to read a new study on how Dumb Growth… Read StoryThe dumbing down of Smart Growth will fail to preserve MD landscape