After nearly 40 years living on Cedar Lane, Anne Robinson got a new neighbor. The Middle Patuxent Environmental Area was established along Annie’s river to the north of her land in 1996. The MPEA’s mission from the start was to restore and protect 1,021 acres—one of the largest undeveloped tracts in Howard County—and to promote environmental research, education, and outdoor recreation.

Of course, the MPEA’s forests, fields, wetlands, and wildlife were there long before the Howard County Department of Recreation and Parks began managing the property. In the early 1800s, much of the northern land grew tobacco for Charles Carroll, an early Maryland Senator and signer of the Declaration of Independence. The southern section, near the Robinsons' home, was farmed by locals for wheat and corn to process at Simpsonville Mill. Tobacco farming ended when the soil wore out, and grain farming declined when the mill closed in the 1930s, but traces of farm roads still wind through the MPEA’s woods.

Old farm fields were sprouting young forests by the 1960s, when Columbia began to grow up around the Middle Patuxent River. Wildlife biologist Aelred Geis invited Columbia’s founder James Rouse to join him on a hike there in the spring of 1966, knowing Rouse longed to see the courtship dance of a male woodcock. The bird’s spiraling flight that evening helped convince Rouse to spare 500 acres of potential subdivisions for wildlife habitat, an area later matched by the county that now is home to deer, owls, mink, box turtles, butterflies, and other wildlife, including woodcocks.

Today, the MPEA is managed by the county in cooperation with the Middle Patuxent Environmental Foundation. Management projects include meadow habitat restoration, bird and other wildlife inventories, and stream water quality monitoring. An active cadre of volunteers maintain 5.4 miles of hiking trails, monitor bluebird nest boxes, and combat Japanese barberry and other invasive species. Anyone interested in joining these efforts should contact the MPEA’s Natural Resource Manager, Cheryl Farfaras, at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Supporters of the Robinson Foundation might especially want to volunteer for woodcock monitoring in March, when males spiral into the evening skies. The bird’s role in protecting the MPEA is commemorated in the Aelred D. Geis Woodcock Habitat Management Area and in the Foundation’s woodcock logo, and we want to be part of the team that makes sure they’re here to stay.