The Baltimore Ravens are just one win away from the Super Bowl, and Maryland's sports bars and office water coolers are suddenly awash in Ravens experts.
And come spring, those scholars of sport will molt their purple plumage, don orange, and become authorities on Russell Street's other birds, the Orioles.
But none can top Kevin E. Omland's credentials when it comes to Baltimore ornithological expertise. Omland, an evolutionary biologist hired in October by the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, studies ravens and orioles exclusively - the lower-case variety, that is. The sort with feathers.
Omland has discovered evidence that ravens in California are genetically distinct from those everywhere else. One of their distinctions is their fondness for Dumpster-diving.
And his genetic examination of oriole species throughout the New World has helped to buttress the Baltimore oriole's recently regained status as a distinct species. And he has traced the birds' ancestry to Mexico.
Omland has never seen the Ravens play, and he's only been to Oriole Park once. But his absence from Baltimore stadiums is not really his fault. He's from Vermont. "I grew up a Red Sox fan," he says.
He's not a big football fan, either. But he promises to do better. "I'll watch the playoffs," he says.
UMBC acquired Omland from the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoo for the 2000-2001 college season. Omland held a Smithsonian fellowship in molecular evolution.
"This department [at UMBC] has very strong researchers in molecular and cell biology," he says. "I can help them bring an evolutionary perspective to cell biology, and they can help me be more current in cell biology and apply it to evolution and behavior."
Coming to the land of upper-case Ravens and Orioles was just a coincidence. "It makes it easier for people to relate to the research we do," he says. And just maybe it will make it easier to find grant money to support his work.
Omland, 37, has admired ravens since his boyhood in Vermont, when he watched them fly high over the Green Mountains in their aerobatic courtship displays.
"They roll upside down, fall and pull out. I think they're great birds, wonderful birds to see," he says.
The species is found throughout most of the Northern Hemisphere, including the Appalachian summits, with no differences in appearance across their range.
