Dear Ospreyers, Below is the text of a press release MCC-MOS has distributed regarding the collection of Claudia Wilds' books that is now housed at the Black Hill Reg. Park Visitor Center. Please note that summer hours are listed; you should call for fall hours before you plan to visit. Note also that a good portion of Claudia's shorebird, gull, and seabird books are now part of the library at the Audubon Naturalist Society's Woodend headquarters in Bethesda. The staff has requested that you call before you plan to stop by. The phone is 301-652-9188 X3019. Most of Claudia's books that deal with waterfowl, birds of the world, general birds and birding, and species profiles can be found and read at Black Hill. Books cannot be checked out, and they cannot be taken (believe it or not, the park staff have seen several people, apprently birders, walking off with books!). The press release is below. Claudia was a wonderful mentor to many area birders and has left us a generous gift in her library. Hopefully many of us will put her books to good use. Howard Youth hmyouth@erols.com Rockville, MD Montgomery County Chapter of the Maryland Ornithological Society PRESS RELEASE Birdwatcher's Library Opens at Montgomery County Park The Montgomery County Chapter of the Maryland Ornithological Society (MCC-MOS) announces the opening of a bird-related library at Black Hill Regional Park in upper Montgomery County. Claudia Wilds, one of the Washington area's best-known bird authorities, left her entire book collection to the MCC-MOS, which has installed most of the library at the park, where it is available for free public use. The organization, with the permission of the Black Hill Regional Park staff, installed the non-circulating reference library on June 9, a year after Wilds' death. The library is now open at the park's visitor center, where park naturalist Denise Gibbs reports that it has already been heavily used, especially on weekends. The collection of 365 books is housed in oak bookcases donated by MCC-MOS. Reference materials include field guides, site guides, species accounts, and books about birds of the world. The library is dedicated to its former owner, Claudia Wilds. Wilds, an expert on Washington area birds and the world's shorebirds, gulls, and terns, left her mark on the local birding community in many ways. She served on the boards of the Maryland Ornithological Society and Virginia Society for Ornithology (VSO), was president of MCC-MOS, and from 1973 to 1990 was the voice of the "Voice of the Naturalist," a local rare bird tape weekly issued by the Audubon Naturalist Society (ANS). Wilds was a consultant for the popular National Geographic Society Field Guide to the Birds of North America, an assistant-to-the-editor of the national magazine of the American Birding Association Birding, a contributor to the National Audubon Society's three-volume Master Guide to Birding, and author of Finding Birds in the National Capital Area. She regularly led field trips for the MCC-MOS, ANS, and VSO, and influenced thousands of birdwatchers. Born in Hyannis, Massachusetts in 1931, Wilds had been a Washington area resident since 1958. On June 8, 1997, she died, after a year-long battle with cancer. At the time of her death, Wilds was working on a book detailing the natural history and identification of the world's terns and skimmers. Wild's library is housed at the Black Hill Regional Park Visitor Center, located at 20926 Lake Ridge Drive in Boyds, Maryland. The visitor center and library are open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., seven days a week. (Fall hours will differ; call for details.) Admission is free. For more information, call (301) 972-3476. ### Howard Youth Rockville, MD hmyouth@erols.com