Sporting Clays

Waterfowl FestivalFor examining and buying wildlife paintings, carvings, sculpture and decoys, travel to the Colonial town of Easton on the Eastern Shore. For the 27th consecutive year, the Waterfowl Festival will showcase the finest in wildlife art tomorrow through Sunday.The festival includes exhibits, seminars and demonstrations for collectors, nature and wildlife enthusiasts and people who simply enjoy the festive spirit that pervades the show. More than 450 artists from around country and overseas are expected to participate.

SHOWSThrough Sept. 26: Opening of Chesapeake Changes, a natural history exhibit that focuses on the geology, geography, wildlife and human settlement in the 64,000-square-mile watershed of the bay, Explorers Hall of the National Geographic Society, 17th and M streets NW, Washington, D.C.Sunday: Bay Country Boat Show, Hollywood Fire Hall, Hollywood, Md. For more information, call (301) 373-5468.FISHINGWednesday: Free State Fly Fishers annual club tackle auction and monthly meeting at Hillsmere Elementary School in Annapolis, 7:30 p.m. The public is welcome.

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.

Too often, perhaps, hunters and fishermen are seen in the wrong light by ultra-conservationists and wildlife preservationists, who view the killing of game or the catching of fish as dubious activities at best.But those among us who neither hunt nor fish but enjoy nonconsumptive pastimes out of doors such as wildlife photography, wilderness hikes or watching a trout feed in a cold mountain stream should understand there are sides to hunting and fishing that should be noted and appreciated.

Understanding: Weather Friday, 2 a.m. and 10 a.m. Science Chase tornadoes with the Oklahoma-based VORTEX Project and visit the NOAA's Space Environment Center to examine the solar cycles and meteorological currents that spawn the Gulf Stream, El Nino and the crucial North Atlantic Oscillation. Discovery Health Classroom Saturday, 5 a.m. Discovery Health "Prescription for Trouble." Experts put forth three explanations for the explosion in abuse of legal drugs: easier access, a false sense that these drugs are safe, and a "medicine mind-set" in our culture.

WEEKEND FISHINGAlthough area rivers remain high and muddy and lakes and reservoirs are full, the warming weather and longer days have turned on fishing -- especially on the Eastern Shore.Red Bridges, at the head of the Choptank River, and Millington, at the head of the Chester River, have been producing white perch on grass shrimp or shad darts and small artificial grubs.In the Hillsboro section of the Tuckahoe, some yellow perch are mixed with white perch, as they are in the Choptank near Martinak State Park.

Over the past four years, Becoming an Outdoors Woman, a program sponsored by the Department of Natural Resources, has introduced more than 800 women to skills as diverse as bird watching and firearms safety.Nancy Smogor, education coordinator with DNR's Wildlife and Heritage Division, said yesterday this year's series of workshops again will provide an opportunity for women to learn largely nontraditional skills such as woodlore, fly fishing and wilderness survival.Becoming an Outdoors Woman is an international program that was started nine years ago and has been under way in Maryland since 1995.

DENTON -- Not only is a bird in hand worth two in the bush, a bird in the woods is worth two in the field. Especially if the bird is a ringneck pheasant, chukar, or Hungarian partridge.With regulated shooting preserves, the foremost drawback is that birds are usually released in cornfields. One can eye the terrain and quickly predict where much of the shooting will occur.You might say pay-as-you-shoot areas are predictable; I might add that not infrequently they are too predictable. Much of the element of surprise is missing, and to this writer that is an important part of a shoot.