Feeder

Like it or not, winter is just around the corner. One of my favorite cold-weather activities is enjoying and identifying the many birds attracted to my backyard feeder.A representative of the Department of Natural Resources once told me that 20 species of birds frequent Maryland back yards. These include chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, sparrows, finches, cardinals, blue jays, grosbeaks and woodpeckers.Bird food and feeders can be bought in hardware, grocery, garden or farm stores as well as specialty shops and catalogs.

There was a time when I could easily lure my three young children in from their summer-night street games with the bait of the Discovery Channel's "Shark Week. " We would all gather on the family room couch to watch the frighteningly close-up, spectacular shots of feeding frenzies — fins and teeth chopping the water into a Bass-o-matic froth filmed by a brave diver in an underwater cage. A narrator — with all the inflection and dynamism of Dick Cheney — would relate key facts about the class Chondrichthyes as well as salient environmental and habitat issues.

Trouble in at least one underground feeder line twice disrupted electrical power last night to about 4,400 homes and businesses scattered throughout several city neighborhoods in Central Baltimore, said a spokesman for Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. Service was restored to all but 1,200 customers by 11 p.m. yesterday, said Charles Welsh, a spokesman for BGE. Power is expected to return for those customers by early today. The utility serves 1.1 million customers in Central Maryland. Welsh said power outages throughout the communities of Bolton Hill, Charles Village and several neighborhoods along Greenmount Avenue first were reported at about 6:20 p.m. Welsh said more incidents of power outages were reported in the same areas shortly before 8 p.m. Repair crews responded and were attempting to locate the source of the outages, starting at the central substation south of Remington.

In winter, my backyard looks like the mall food court. Dozens of birds line up at my feeders and suet holders like hungry teenagers: jays, flickers, wrens, house sparrows, cardinals, all shoving each other out of the way. This time of year, there is also plenty of action in what my son calls "the bird hot tub," a heated birdbath that does not freeze when other sources of water do. I am not a knowledgeable bird-watcher, but I love to sit in my kitchen...

Greg Phillips has never met Lilli Downes, has never given her townhouse a second thought, even though they both live in Grace Harbour, a waterside community in Havre de Grace.But now the two have something in common, and Mr. Phillips is not happy about it. In the eyes of their homeowners association, they are outlaws.That's because each has erected a bluebird house and a bird feeder without prior written approval from the Architectural Control Committee of Grace Harbour Homeowners Association.

School Superintendent Carol S. Parham wants to let citizens' groups suggest the best way to redraw the boundaries for two school feeder systems.Usually, the superintendent makes boundary recommendations to the school board at the first board meeting in December.Instead, Dr. Parham will ask the board at today's meeting to consider creating two advisory panels.Thomas W. Rhoades, director of program planning, said the superintendent took the approach because the administration hopes to draw community members into the redistricting process.

A contingent of Severn Elementary School parents asked the county school board last night to reconsider a 2-year-old decision to take the school out of the Old Mill feeder system and place it in the Meade cluster, which they view as less desirable.Not only were the parents unsuccessful in winning sympathy from the board, but they alienated several board members by saying they want their children to attend middle and high schools that have fewer minority, poor and transient students than the Meade area schools have.

Trouble in four underground feeder lines disrupted electrical power last night to about 6,400 homes and businesses in Columbia's Wilde Lake village, said a spokesman for Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. The first outages were reported about 4 p.m. and affected about 1,200 customers, said Charles Welsh of BGE. About 7 p.m., another 5,200 customers lost power, he said. Welsh attributed the outages to four underground lines coming out of a Wilde Lake substation whose weak spots were exposed by the increased demand for electricity as temperatures reached the upper 90s yesterday.

Buckle up those seat belts and drive down Route 75 to Union Bridge Sunday afternoon.Just as you enter town, direct your attention to the Western Maryland Railway Historical Society Museum, where you'll find an open house from 1 to 4 p.m.Leave your autos in the parking lot and step back into the heyday of railroad travel, when the train was the nation's king of transportation.The scale model railroad will be in operation, with layout depicting scenes from the railway's 130-year history. You can imagine riding the rails, viewing the miniature version of long ago life along the railway tracks.

The last round of redistricting for Howard County high schools in 2001 turned contentious, pitting communities and parents against each other. This year, the Howard County School Boundary Line Committee is once again reshaping high school boundaries to fill Marriott's Ridge High School when it opens in fall of next year. Meeting since June, the committee has been reviewing three preliminary plans drafted by the school's geographical information systems office. Under each plan, between 2,200 to 2,800 rising freshmen and sophomore students would be shifted throughout the county to fill Marriott's Ridge by 2007, when the phasing-in of the county's 12th high school will be complete.

The foundation of Navy's football dominance over Army can be found hundreds of miles north of Annapolis, at the Naval Academy Prep School in Newport, R.I. It is there that a long-haired quarterback from Hawaii named Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada cut his locks and honed his skills in running the same triple-option offense he had in high school. It is there that a college soccer goalkeeper from New Jersey named Sander Gossard learned how to play football and turned three years in the Navy into a four-year career as an offensive lineman.

Achance discovery at a recent charity auction presented the opportunity to make good on a long-postponed ambition. It was a birdfeeder, with starter food kit. Birds have mostly been background noise in a life jammed with more hectic and pressing activities than donning a pair of binoculars and tramping about the great outdoors. There's reason to fear, though, that the opportunity won't last forever. Some threatened avian species are returning, but many more are disappearing as their habitat is destroyed by sprawling development and global warming.

An estimated 40,000 gallons of sewage overflowed from a broken line in Timonium before it was repaired late Sunday, according to county officials. The break in the 12-inch sewer line beneath East Padonia Road, between Quiet Stream Court and Sunnylake Place, was detected about 9 a.m. Sunday and was repaired by that night, according to Baltimore County officials. The county's Department of Environmental Protection and Resource Management has posted signs advising residents to avoid contact with the waters of Merryman Branch, a tributary of Loch Raven Reservoir.

About 30 mothers toted their babies to Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport yesterday to protest Delta Air Lines and other companies that have hassled them for breast-feeding in public. The "nurse-in" at BWI and several other airports around the country was in response to a nursing mother's removal from a Delta commuter flight last month after she refused a flight attendant's request that she cover up. Delta has since said it "fully supports a mother's right to breast-feed her baby on board our aircraft" and that removal of Emily Gillette and her family from a plane in Burlington, Vt., was not in keeping with Delta's service standards.

Annapolis will get a new voice on educational issues starting this fall when a city council-appointed commission begins advocating for the needs of the 11 schools in the city feeder system. The new commission, approved unanimously by the council on Monday, will make recommendations to the Anne Arundel County Board of Education and superintendent. Members want to focus on getting mentors and tutors for students in the lower-performing schools and on after-school activities. Council members have been concerned about the disparity in test scores and overall academic achievement between city feeder schools - those that feed into Annapolis High - and other county schools.

The Baltimore County school board is considering a recommendation to have children from two elementary schools in the southwestern part of the county attend the new Windsor Mill Middle School. Under the proposal, which was the subject of a sparsely attended hearing last night, Dogwood and Winfield elementary schools would become feeder schools for Windsor Mill. School board members are expected to make a decision about the attendance-area proposal at their March 28 meeting. Steve Whisler, president of the Westview Park Improvement & Civic Association, told school board members that he believed the boundary-line process was not "community based" and urged them to reject all four concepts that were developed.

NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. - In this suburban city, bird feeders are as common as swing sets and backyard barbecues. But one bird feeder has been declared illegal and its owner hauled into court to face a trial, complete with witnesses.The feeder, city officials said, needs a building permit because it is a structure, and all structures require permits."What is a structure?" asked Joseph Stargiotti, the prosecutor, noting that the word is not explicitly defined in the city's building code. "If a bird feeder is a structure, it requires a building permit.

Birds remind us that nature goes on, even on those interminable winter days when we less hardy humans are stuck indoors. Making your yard hospitable to birds increases the chances they'll make regular stops at your house. That can be as simple as keeping a feeder filled or as involved as landscaping to improve the habitat. But it's best to start small, seasoned bird-watchers say. Choose a feeder that will attract the kind of birds that interest you. Common types include thistle feeders, which attract finches, song sparrows and other small birds; tray, platform or hopper feeders, which can hold a seed mix that attracts bigger birds; and suet feeders, which attract woodpeckers, nuthatches, chickadees, jays and starlings.