Love is in the air — and on Bay beaches — as love-struck horseshoe crabs begin their annual mating ritual.     These ancient marine arthropods — despite their name, they are not crustaceans — respond to the pull of the moon and spring tides to procreate. Their spawning peaks during evening tides over three to four days centered on the full new moon dates.     At peak spawn, the tide lines of prime beaches may be covered in spawning...

Back in 2001, I joined the Severn River Association in arguing a tidal wetlands case before the Board of Public Works. We were trying to convince the regulators that a living shoreline would be better than a rock revetment on one of the last remaining natural shorelines along the Severn. To make our case, we came armed with school children and turtles.     The school children, freshly scrubbed from the Samuel Ogle Science Magnet School, explained the importance of beach habitat...

God works in very mouseterious ways –from ChrisMouse: The Real Story of Silent Night, by Anon E. Mouse The lump of feathers on Nutwell-Sudley Road was an owl. Rescuing Mr. Owl took five guardian angels.     Once husband Jim and I recognized the lump as an owl, we turned around to block traffic, thus becoming Angels No. 1 and 2.     I waved drivers around while Jim went back home for our forgotten cell phone and the blanket we wished we’d had when we...

America loves dogs. In a country with more than 300 million people, there are 77-plus million owned dogs. Well over a third of all households in America have a pet dog, with many having two or more.     Sometimes that love goes to extremes, as in Anne Arundel County where Animal Control officers found 51 dogs in a Pasadena home.     The dogs, though numerous, were not abused.     “They were flea bitten and had ear mites,” said...