This Friday, December 5 at 8:00 p.m. at Arlington Echo Environmental Education Center, Crownsville, MD, the Anne Arundel County Bird Club will be hosting an excellent presentation by Maryland-based photographer Middleton Evans, who will show slides of his photos of waterbirds. Middleton will also be autographing and selling his book, Rhapsody in Blue: A Celebration of North American Waterbirds, a great Christmas gift.  

Traveling to the continent’s wild perimeter in search of glorious North American waterbirds was the adventure of a lifetime for Maryland-based photographer Middleton Evans.  He made 38 trips over a five-year period to complete his “wish list” of alluring species, captivating behaviors and pristine habitats.  A remarkable trip to Florida in 1998 inspired the project with ten days of daily surprises. This work resulted in a beautifully narrated collection of 320 photographs, representing over 150 species in his new book.  Highlights include a Great Blue Heron grappling a plump muskrat, a remarkably friendly King Eider, dancing Western Grebes and a huge crèche of fledgling Greater Flamingoes; yet nothing would eclipse sitting in a Bald Eagle nest on Middleton Island, Alaska.  Middleton Evans will present these glorious moments with waterbirds captured on film.  He has spent the majority of his 20-year career documenting the many faces of Maryland, and he was featured in the MPT docume
ntary film Images of Maryland: 1900 – 2000, chronicling the state’s most distinguished lensmen of the twentieth century. Evans has a special passion for birds.  While compiling Rhapsody in Blue, Evans made hundreds of trips to his favorite pond in Baltimore’s Patterson Park, documenting an astounding 120 bird species, for a book just released this year, The Miracle Pond that he also will share with attendees.

Sue Ricciardi for Gerald Winegrad, AABC Program Chair