Beyond Assateague
The wonders of Maryland’s lesser-known state parks
“Swainson’s thrush! Cape May warbler!” I looked up at the lofty treetops and saw … lots of leaves. “Northern parula to the left!” I swung my binoculars wildly in that direction, scanning empty branches as mosquitoes pierced my yoga pants. “Bay-breasted warbler!” came another particularly excited shout (it was a rare find for Maryland, I discovered later), and that time I thought maybe, just maybe, I caught a flash of movement in my peripheral vision.
I’m no dodo when it comes to nature exploration, but this seasoned group of about 20 birders operated at another level entirely.
I didn’t mind; I was simply delighted to be on Hart-Miller Island, home to a little-visited state park in the Chesapeake Bay.
It had taken some tenacity to get here: The 1,100-acre refuge, known as a hot spot for migrating birds, is only accessible by personal boat or kayak — the first option extraordinarily expensive, the second requiring a nearly two-mile paddle across choppy waters. Last summer, after months of searching for another way, I got lucky: The Patterson Park Audubon Center announced a Hart-Miller trip for late September as part of its Baltimore Birding Weekend.
It was, in the words of birding weekend co-organizer Jim Rapp, an “insanely beautiful” morning — cool and clear — when our group met at a dock in Essex. As we donned our neon-yellow safety vests and boarded the boat, I learned my fellow birders were equally excited, because the Hart-Miller trip had been canceled for two years in a row, first because of weather, then the pandemic.
Hart-Miller is a combination of three islands: Pleasure, Hart and Miller, the latter two joined with a dike in 1981 and filled with sediment from the dredging of the nearby Inner Harbor in Baltimore. Most people come in summer to enjoy its secluded half-mile beach, campsites and miles of little-trod forest and coastal trails. To me, the highlight was a pristine marsh brimming with relatively uncommon birds, including black terns, colorful redhead ducks, and a pair of trumpeter swan parents swimming alongside their fuzzy gray cygnet. All in all, we added 80 bird species to our feathered cap, including a bald eagle that soared directly overhead.
“It’s a sight I never get tired of,” Rapp said as we watched our national bird fly into the distance.
I feel the same about traveling, which has been a mainstay of happiness throughout my adult life. So when the coronavirus pandemic began in March 2020, I knew I needed to find that fix somehow, ultimately deciding to go to all 47 state parks in Maryland, my home state.
The Maryland Park Service manages 75 total units, which are classified into various types, such as state parks, battlefields, natural resources management areas, rail trails and more. To keep my goal manageable, I targeted only units labeled as state parks that are developed and open to the public.
Every weekend, my family of three would pick out a new destination, most of them about an hour or so’s drive from D.C. As a Howard County native, I’d grown up hiking nearby Patapsco Valley State Park, but I was surprised by the range of history and environments we encountered, including the home of a famous abolitionist (Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park), a restored 18th-century Quaker village and gristmill (Gunpowder Falls State Park) and the oldest eastern hemlock and white pine forest in the state, a more than 360-year-old, rainforest-like grove (Swallow Falls State Park).
Of course, many other people in the D.C. area had the same idea: Visitation to Maryland state parks rose a “record-shattering” nearly 45% in 2020, with 21.5 million visitors vs. 14.9 million in 2019, said Tim Hamilton, business and marketing manager for the Maryland Park Service.
Of course, all of this demand comes with downsides. Most people flocked to the popular parks, such as Sandy Point and its much-loved Chesapeake Bay beach, and Patapsco Valley State Park, with its popular swinging bridge.
That’s why Hamilton encourages people to seek out different parks; one advantage of being a small state is there’s always another close by, he says. Next time you’re on Assateague Island, for instance, Hamilton suggests making a detour to the nearby Pocomoke River State Park, which protects the northernmost bald cypress swamp in the United States.
The Bald Cypress loop, with boardwalks winding through Spanish-mossdraped forests, instantly transports you to the Deep South.
As for my goal, I achieved it in January on a snowy trek through Wolf Den Run State Park in remote western Maryland, a mixed-use refuge of trout streams and off-road vehicle trails.