Feathers

It's not always clear where Rebecca Hoffberger gets her ideas, but it helps to know that when she was a girl growing up in the suburbs, the founding director of the Baltimore's American Visionary Art Museum often received unusual visitors. "Wild birds always loved me," she says. "They'd fly from nowhere and land on my shoulder. Could they tell I'd never hurt them? I don't know, but I've always had an affinity for winged things." The story may help explain why birds, planes and other airborne objects have emerged as major images in Hoffberger's latest creation -- the Jim Rouse Visionary Center, a sweeping, $9.3 million expansion of AVAM that will open to the public in a week and a half.

POLLS SHOW a certain country almost evenly divided between those who support George W. Bush and those who support John Kerry, but Republicans usually have an edge and this year is no exception. On a trip abroad, the president himself suggests that a victory for Mr. Kerry in November would be a victory for worldwide terrorism. Having seen his relations with Europe sour, the man in charge understands that he has only himself and his great nation to rely on, but he has backbone, because he is the sort of resolute leader who never admits or recognizes a mistake.

BIRDS ARE CITIZENS of the world. They cross national boundaries as easily and thoughtlessly as Baltimoreans cross from the city into the county. This is why migratory birds are protected by a network of international treaties that have been an integral part of U.S. law since President Woodrow Wilson signed the International Migratory Bird Treaty Act in 1918. So why has Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest, a Maryland Republican, introduced legislation that would gut this bulwark of international conservation by removing "non-native" species of birds from its protection?

THESE DAYS, WE TAKE flying for granted. We walk aboard commercial airplanes, and although we don't understand how they work, we're confident that, thanks to the extremely sophisticated technology embodied in these complex machines, some teeny part, possibly in the toilet, will malfunction, and we will be delayed. But sometimes planes actually fly. And when they do, they become soaring monuments to the brave pioneers who made modern aviation possible -- people like Wilbur and Orville Wright Brothers, Amelia "Air" Hart, and Earl P. Flinchwater, who developed the computer program that guarantees that no two passengers on any given flight ever pay the same fare.

OCEAN CITY - Rain or the threat of it all morning. Skies so dark you'd swear it was a Sunday during the National Football League season. And wind, gusting from the northeast, prompted small-craft warnings. It was the perfect day for a parade in Maryland's beach town - at least for a few thousand die-hards who say their loyalty and love of the Baltimore Ravens were defined by the 13 long years they waited for a team after the Colts franchise was hauled off to Indiana. Yesterday was the third year in a row with the weather on the iffy side for the annual three-day convention of the Council of Baltimore Ravens Roosts, the governing body for nearly 50 chapters with about 4,000 members.

J. Edward Johnston - aka the "Birdman of Guilford" - has been inviting strangers onto his front lawn to visit with his parrots and cockatiels for nearly two decades. At 80, he's still squawking out facts about the birds (for example: Parrots are the fourth-smartest animals on the planet) and setting the stage for the Houdini-esque escape act of a blue macaw named Margaret. "She's so fast, you won't see her [execute her] escape," Johnston told a group of visitors recently, waving his hand toward Margaret, who was perched on his shoulder.

Mojo seems an unlikely character in a lawsuit. "C'mere and give me a kiss," she squawks, flapping in her cage. But the African gray parrot is at the heart of a case moving through the Baltimore County court system, pitting an avian-loving Essex couple against a longtime Dundalk vet. And so far, the law has been siding with the bird. Mojo's owners, Mary and Leo Wade Adams of Essex, say a doctor at the Dundalk Animal Hospital over-clipped the young parrot's wing feathers, causing the bird to over-prune herself - a condition known as "feather picking."

Gobblers or stripers? The seasons for Maryland's spring surf-and-turf combo get cranked up over the next week, and not a moment too soon. Things have been just a little too tense around Casa Thomson, if you know what I mean. When Isabel shut down the electricity to the old Frigidaire for four days last fall, we had to toss out a lot of frozen striper filets. That made for mighty slim pickings over the winter, when the grill was willing but the icebox was not. On Saturday, we'll start reeling in the first stripers of the trophy season, an opening day when there are so many boats out on the bay that you'd swear you could walk from deck to deck without getting your feet wet. The minimum is 28 inches, one fish per day. Please use offset circle hooks to help throw-backs live to be big fish.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Orioles reliever Rick Bauer would sit in the bullpen during games last season, glance at the score and anticipate the outcome. He didn't use a mathematical formula or some other sophisticated system. The lineup provided all the evidence he needed. Without guys like Miguel Tejada, Rafael Palmeiro and Javy Lopez in the middle, he had a pretty good idea the Orioles were going to stay behind. The size of the deficit wasn't important. "If we got down by two runs in the fifth inning, it didn't look good at all. We almost had no shot," he said.

All of Ellicott City's Main Street knows about the handwritten newsletter printed on bright yellow paper. Depending on whom you talk to, The Main Street Gossip Rag is either the musings of a tasteless, mean-spirited man or the irreverent observations of a satirist with an absurd take on the town. It seems there is no middle ground when it comes to Bob Pyle's one-man newsletter, which usually is printed weekly. The 47-year-old, who has a gutter-cleaning business, has ruffled some feathers on the genteel, quaint street lined with antiques shops, restaurants and art galleries.