At Patuxent Research Refuge, where President George W. Bush likes to bike, The Washington Post reports that expanses of the 13,000-acre property spanning Anne Arundel and Prince George’s counties are closed to the public and whole buildings are shuttered because of continued budget cuts from the White House, including a recent two percent midyear cut …

In Annapolis, DNR is looking for fishing folks to take part in the Summer Flounder Volunteer Angler Survey to help guide management of a fine species on the rebound in the Bay. It’s not too tough — even though you have to admit it when you and your buddies get skunked. To take part, go to: www.dnr.maryland.gov/fisheries/survey/
sfsurveyintro.shtml or call 877-620-8DNR x 8311 …

In Tangier Sound, they’ll soon be able to get about the business of gathering eelgrass now that the Maryland Board of Public Works has approved a $21,750 contract for McCook and Associates of LaPlata. The money was donated by the Keith Campbell Foundation for a project that aims to plant 1,000 acres of underwater grass in Chesapeake Bay by 2008 …

In Virginia, the Richmond Times-Dispatch noted that a stretch of the James River is known for great fishing. “Why, just yesterday, Mike Berry and his friends had a great haul: four M-16 assault weapons, 13 gun parts, a stereo, a police scanner and two parking meters.” Berry and his friends were state police divers knowledgeable about where bad guys drop their tools …

Our Creature Feature comes from Ireland, and if you think a film needs to be made, you’d better hurry. A pair of golden eagles, extinct in Ireland for a century, is nesting in the remote Donegal Hills on the northern tip of the country.

Hunting parties in the late 1800s and early 1900s wiped out the majestic goldens, saddling Ireland with the ignominy of being perhaps the only country where they had gone extinct. Four years ago, a half-dozen chicks were brought in from Scotland. Two are mating, earlier than predicted, and biologist Lorcan O’Toole told Reuters about their nest: “The birds built a small eyrie made from heather twigs, old dried-out thistle stalks, woodrush, rushes and grasses.”