Pond

When it rains, not only does storm water flow downstream, but so do the banks of small streams emptying into Red Hill Branch, bringing other pollutants with the eroding soil. In a move to stem environmental problems and add wildlife habitat, Howard County has begun four restoration projects for the waterway in Ellicott City. Officials say they expect the work, which includes overhauling a storm-water pond and stabilizing more than 5,000 feet of the banks of three streams, to be completed by May. Project manager Mark Richmond said the pond behind Salterforth Place will go from being a depression that is dry most of the time to a larger pond that always has water.

The Hickory Ridge Village Center has a lot to offer. The ambience there seems light, airy and contemporary when not a few of Columbia's commercial centers are looking rather tired these days. One of the center's long-time residents (since 1993, we're told, but it seems longer) is keeping up with the Hickory Ridge outside ambience with a charming new décor inside. Today's Peking Chef isn't exactly Zen, but the 130-seat restaurant provides a lovely, relaxed interior, with epoxy-topped wooden tables and wooden chairs in the center of the dining room, and booths along the sides.

Late summer fishing and hot weather require a different approach. This is time of the year for slowly fished live bait. My choice for ponds and stream fishing is the live grasshopper. Hooked through the collar just behind the head with the point of the hook facing rear the bait will float naturally. To fish the bait under the surface, add a small split shot about 6 inches above the bait. Let the bait slowly bounce along the bottom in the current. When the fish takes the bait give the fish time to inhale the bait fully before you set the hook.

Port City Bass Anglers will hold its seventh annual kids fishing festival and reel kids casting event at Bynum Run Park on Churchville Road in Bel Air this Saturday, July 16. At this free event, junior anglers will participate in a tournament and have a fun day of fishing that will be split into two age groups from 5 years old through 15 years old. Registration will begin at 8 a.m. at the park entrance. The fishing will take place from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m. In addition, participating youngsters will have the option to compete in a casting, flipping and pitching contest.

Is there an ornithologist in the house? I think I might have seen a wild turkey this morning. No, not the kind in the bottle. That won't happen before 5. On my bike ride into work I saw a kind of bird I had never before seen in these parts. I was on the pathway on the west shore of Jackson Pond in Long Reach. Standing in the grass just off the pathway was a dun-colored critter that, from beak to tailfeathers, was three or four feet long. As I approached, it sauntered behind one of the apartment buildings.

Baltimore County fire crews rescued a woman who lost control of her car Monday morning on the outer loop of Interstate 695 near Towson, drove off the road and landed in a pond. A fire dispatcher received a call shortly before 11:30 a.m. that a vehicle had gone off the highway between the Dulaney Valley Road and York Road exits, landing partially submerged in a sediment pond. Emergency crews from Texas Fire Station 17 and Lutherville Volunteer Fire Company 30 extended ladders down to the car and helped the woman climb out onto a platform.

Residents of the Eastern Shore community of Still Pond have taken the first step toward establishing a nonprofit organization in hopes of saving a historic market and post office that was heavily damaged by fire last fall. The Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation approved the paperwork on Friday creating Still Pond Preservation Inc., allowing the group to bid for the 19th-century building that stands in a National Historic District in Kent County. The historic designation established in 2009 does not protect the building from destruction, and the owners have a demolition permit that they can use starting on Monday.

On a small sheet of ice, ringed by a rustic frame of cattails, the boys of winter play their game. The pond hockey season below the Mason-Dixon line can have the lifespan of a mayfly, so they embrace the moment with all the energy of an end-to-end rush. This is hockey as nature intended: pure, uncomplicated, joyous. No one complains about having to shovel the surface clear of snow or when slush soaks sweatpants as a skidding puck throws up a rooster tail of spray. Backpacks and winter boots mark goals and everyone is a referee.

Anne Arundel County police on Monday identified a man whose body was found over the weekend in a frozen pond in Edgewater as a 28-year-old Gambrills resident. Police said the body of Justin Paul Raddie of the 900 block of Echo Bay Court was taken to the state medical examiner's office in Baltimore for an autopsy after a Fire Department dive team found him Sunday in a storm-water retention pond near Riverton Place and Stepneys Lane. Officers went to the area about 11:30 a.m. that day after a woman who had been walking her dog reported seeing a pair of shoes at the scene and holes in the ice. Police found one shoe on the ground, another on the ice and called in the dive team.

A man's body was found Saturday in a frozen pond in Edgewater after a woman noticed shoes at the scene, Anne Arundel County police said. Lt. J. D. Batten Jr., a spokesman for the police department, said a woman went to the police department office in Edgewater and told officers that while she was out walking her dog she saw a pair of shoes at a storm water retention pond near Riverton Place and Stepneys Lane. She said she knew the shoes hadn't been there the day before because she had walked along the same path.