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And. You know. The bad stuff. MTV productions it's an I know your in channel and a full moon and blossoming dogwoods have joined this backyard woodland into a fairy land. But what makes the night even more magical is what's happening in the tree tops. Another one going about where they're. Coming from every direction and I guess the grain or the trees seem to be filled with tiny hang gliders steered by Lilliputian pilots. But this tree top display is actually put on by squirrels flying score offs that live in the Oaks near the home of Ted and velvet Kitzmiller in Pasadena Maryland. In exchange for peanuts and sunflower seeds tickets Millers are treated to this aerial act every night of the year. While they sound exotic flying squirrels are surprisingly common. Many places are more abundant than grey squirrels because they come at night most people aren't acquainted with them. Any place you have big trees and with trees

close enough together that they can glide from one to the other. You'll have flying squirrels. Flying Squirrels don't actually fly says Rob Gibbs a wildlife biologist with the Montgomery County Department of park and planning. They have an extra flap of skin color by pathé GM that runs from their wrist essentially to their ankle and when they stretch their arms out that stretches its membrane which then allows them to glide from site to site. The advantage of gliding is that they can get from one tree to another very rapidly and they don't have to go down on the ground where they could be captured by weasels or sort of things. These nocturnal squirrels haven't been studied as much as squirrels that are active during the day. So Gibbs and fellow biologist John hench have put up nest boxes in some Montgomery County Parks to see what they can learn about flying squirrels under Natural Situation flying squirrels in that state in cavities of trees.

The boxes that we put up sort of take the place of those natural cavities and allow maybe a larger number to live in an area. Females use the boxes to raise young in cooler months groups of adults huddled together in the boxes for warmth. Well we've got quite a few in there quite a few. We will have three. We live on it. The first step is to extract the score as one of the time for weighing heavier than the other one. You stop when you're. 70 grams. Then the squirrels are tagged so biologists can track their movements here. Rippin you were very.

Good with the data collected and squirrels back inside the boxes are returned to the trees and over the long term will be able to learn things about how long they're living where they're moving if they're moving seasonally to different areas in the park and also the importance of the boxes themselves. Yvonne Pfleger a retired wildlife biology professor and squirrel expert also uses boxes to attract flying squirrels to his backyard in Silver Spring Maryland this is a box made for flying squirrels and it's a small one. That shouldn't be any smaller than this. And the important thing about it is that the hole is an inch and a quarter east side and that keeps the grey squirrels from coming and going. And then this shelf here. Gives him a chance to live here with their noses. Looking at the world and also prevents raccoons from reaching in and taking

whatever's in there I put up about three dozen nest boxes around here made of scraps of wood that I got from people and that entices them and then I put out and word gets out in the woods that there is free food in the breeders backyard. Pfleger attempts to squirrels with sunflower seeds which he puts in a homemade feeder that's on level with his kitchen window. Franks will come out about half an hour after dark. So in the winter time that's just about the time we're eating dinner and so we can sit and watch the flying squirrels. Let me see if I stopped by. Yes can. You. They get their seeds and then. Take it over to the tree. I don't know how they can eat upside down without food running back out of the ground.

When you stand on the ground look up and see one of these. Go by it just looks like a square piece of paper with a feather. They apply pretty fast so you don't get more than a quick glimpse to give more people a glimpse of these nightlight is the art of a naturalist society offers after dark programs in the woods near a Chevy Chase headquarters. We've got over here is feeding platform. And we set this up in October. Once we discovered that we had flying squirrels here on the property the flying squirrels. Are not only a constand. To the fact that there's food at a particular time but they're also. Familiar with the found. The squeaky sound of the pulley. As we lower the feeding platform to make sure we don't put it on until dusk if we put it on the food for the mouth. During the daytime the grey squirrel. Would get it. OK. We hoist it back up.

There's no activity at first. We've had compact here before to take a little bit of time and to get used to the group and to command like to feel when gliding over here who's applying for. Sun little shadows or sailing across the sky and scurrying up and down the trunk. Giving the city dwellers are a rare experience. You can. Hear them. Making their little chip notes before they come in and then the shadow dare to cross through the sky and usually landing on the backside of the tree I was surprised at how small they were they were just little little midgets just running around all friendly and you can see these little teeny creatures your school lighting against the bourbon backplane in the wood you get was magically my little magic. And if you go to. The Beth MPV production.

You can be so peaceful. The serenity of gliding along as exciting as one of the sailors admits as watching grass grow. But then. The adrenaline kicks in. Go on you're going at six or seven will not stand there are a lot of boats around you each of them trying to get on the starting line with speed at the gun. It is probably one of the most exciting things that you can do. And that's what brings Pete Shelley and his 12 man crew out to the Severn River and the bay for 20 summer Wednesday evenings along with a few hundred of their closest friends and competitors. The Annapolis yacht clubs race committee has a big responsibility. It runs the biggest most prestigious Wednesday night race series in the country.

Carl will do the check off. Karen will be on the clock. Twenty minutes till the first gun the start of six races for six different classes or sizes of boats. We'll check the wind and all have of course is a dying want to. Race chairman Bob Wolf delays setting the course for the race to last minute because the wind keeps shifting. When the crash mode finally gets the word and drops the marker for a key turn in the course there are dozens of boats already dancing around the comedy boat all jockeying for position to be just crossing the line at full speed when the gun goes off. I don't. Want to think that about me. We're over really.

Two skippers misjudged they'll lose precious time by circling to cross the start again. Aboard Jelly's Nordic Express they're going over the course and watching for a close rival. Ramrod right up to 25. A smooth start but sometimes the wind defies any maneuvering and shifts right at the gun. Sales quickly changed to catch the new conditions. It's trying to dangerous as the big boats rush toward each other. If. Eventually they do sort it out on our off for their first Mark. All of a sudden a surprise ramrod heads off in an unexpected direction.

Maybe they'll find more when Shelley does not follow. He chases puffs of breeze carefully making his way to the first turn. Family guy very gently yelled at the attack they. Were. All new. Nice job guys. And as they were on the boy. It's time to change sales. The lone crewman on the forward deck raises the spinnaker while others keep tension on the lines. Again they're chasing breezes puffs of air. And as they hit the next Mark ramrods there too right. Right now there are 300. Of. Them.

While they're watching their chief nemesis they can't forget there are other boats in this race to. The bay bridges behind them now they've covered that landmark part of the course but they'll be another journey the wind won't be behind them anymore which means another sail change just ready we're going to go up to the mark and wrap it up ahead so it was not an arc that is there. Shelley is worried though the wind is light and getting lighter. This boat is not as good lighters it is only about 10 not to me been averaging about three to four knots. I think the greatest part of the race figured that she would up and drawing a role like that you could sail like that wherever. Wherever or at least to the finish line where the first classes to start are reaching hard for victory. Only a few got the gun. Right. While the race committee clocks them in the Yacht Club crowd turns the finish into a very social

spectator sport. But back out on the river and bay the fleet has run into trouble. The wind is dying. Shelly's crew thinks the committee might shorten the race and to shorten that flashing 11 are in seawater. Surely archrival Ramrod is off their brow but Shelley knows the handicaps each boat carries almost like an golf would make Nordic express the winner like the head of us but they owe us a bunch of time. And then they hear a quick succession of faint cannon shots from the clubhouse. The Federation really wanted to tell me. Just cancel the right Shelly jokes that ramrod skipper radioed back to the committee suggesting just that. He writes it. They try to cover their disappointment with humor. Looking back at the Fleet still in the bay Shelley

knows it was a good call. Those guys would be out there for another few hours but Committee chairman will far to take his life in his hands when he cancels a race. They wouldn't miss one of the races for I don't know what they might take the white Spengler keep them away from a race. It's got broken. Sailboat racing is a state of mind not just something to do on Wednesday nights. You can set if you need to sail boat sailing in the same direction your rates even if they swear they're not. And you go to. The best of the production. And.

The best of MTV productions with shovels and trowels they're digging up London today they're 1760 Georgian mansion is all that's left of the town of London but buried below there are the bones of a thriving tobacco plant will start in the cellar literally once the cellar of Edward Romney's tavern were archeologist out Welcome back. It's the find of a lifetime and we've got a craft player here from about 17 10 and it was sort of filled in by about 1730. That's the upper trash liar. So they just kind of open the hatch up a step and it looks that way. It's a superb deposit because we're finding the stuff that's literally coming straight out of the tavern and going straight into the ground instead of a few fragmentary pieces we're able to reconstruct. Large portions of of the vessels that were used in the Romneys and the early decades of the seventeen hundreds. Example This is where punch bowl for serving wine or rum

punch to one person and a nail mug and this plate with the fan support mermaid appropriate for a sea port in a rich trove of steel is waiting. The tavern seller is less than half excavated. It's painstaking. Once the top layer plowed by later farmers is removed. Professionals and volunteers carefully scrape inch by inch the dirt they remove and sifted through wire mesh to make sure nothing is missed. That's when mermaid play. And with high tech equipment like this magnetometer and even ground penetrating radar they're laying out the entire town. Romney is under that tent and but we're also digging. Over here looking for there's a house over here a tavern and perhaps a carpenter shop. And this part of the field there was a whole row of buildings there just like a town. The London Town foundation and Anna Randall County planned to reconstruct several of those

buildings. Many Williamsburg. Well speaking of Williamsburg if you were traveling there to say Philadelphia or New York you had to pass right past the Romneys and William Brown's house the fancy side of this building is facing this now overgrown ravine to our side here. And that's because that was Scott Street that was the road down to the ferry crossing and it was the main north south road of the colonial period. Kind of the I-95 1710. Hard to imagine today but this was a vital vibrant and even rowdy town you have to picture. Large ships awaiting the tobacco crop and you didn't want to be late for the tobacco crop so they can sometimes sit out there for months. They have a town where travelers are coming down the road planters are coming in to trade tobacco for goods sailors were carousing around the town for weeks and months on end.

Brown saw great future when he built here and got the ferry franchise. His home made a fine in with rooms for planters to stay and do business. A large friendly kitchen and a place to pass time and good cheer but already London town was in decline. Wealthy an apartment had persuaded the General Assembly to move tobacco inspection to an apple it's no more big ships or important planters came to call here. The town just withered away. Specialists are meticulously restoring the final portraits of William Brown's dream house. It's open for tourists and there are carefully tended gardens on the site but now looking back I find his excitement under it all right where less than a foot down you can find pipes dams or bodies that haven't been touched for almost 300 years. That's probably the best tavern trash from that period in the new world at the moment and it's just the beginning of digging up a lost town in London Town. I'm John on inside Maryland. I.

Am. Thrilled. That MPV Productions. Have been approaching this ever since. 60. Years or so. Mary Colbert ugly not Marilyn is indeed a GM he is a real human being. One perfect brilliant running talent. At age 35 long after many track stars have hung up their cleats. What events do you participate in. OK to visit I'm writing right now. I'm a sprinter and a sprinter is anywhere from 100 meter dash 200 to 400.

Those races. Excelling axil is almost an understatement. COOPER Not only competes in local regional and U.S. track and field masters meets. He has broken and now holds world records missing the 400 meter record a medal that I won in South Africa in 1997. He has hundreds of gold silver and bronze medals trophies and plaques that cover his entire basement walls and ceiling. People ask me why do I run. Or run because it makes me feel good. How many days a week do you need to work and what's the proper commitment. OK well at least six days away. Stan Mullins has been Colbert's track coach for 26 years and he's passed the coaching fever on to Colbert who now successfully heads up the girls and boys track and field team at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Prince George's County. He loves kids and the kids love him.

When you try to give out one day you can do it you know you can always be the best. You might not get Ed. He was you can get another one I love it I love it you know because it's just like a friendship a bond you know when I first met him when I was young and then throughout the years I've just progressed as becoming a better athlete and he's just watched me the whole time you know somewhere like a mental. Game. See another life also influenced by Colbert Baltimore Ravens star wide receiver Jermaine Lewis in the 1980s Louis joined track. Colbert started in the local community. You see I'm not a big guy in those big isn't enough even though. I didn't use my technique. Techniques that I've learned. From him. On a track. That same track that began with six kids now has over 200 and COBRA is still right there with them. Mary Coburn believes in embracing life to the fullest. There's always a can do attitude you know. How long

do you plan to keep doing this. I hope to continue to do it until the day I drop the load times. Countless others hope the same. I mean it gets inside Maryland. And. To. The best of the productions. William Spangler has walked the same path every week for the past 25 years. Behind these bars at the Maryland Correctional Institute he says there are men that need love. He's come to spread everywhere. If we have that kind of love. God gives us we better start sharing it. Look who's here.

He is a deeply religious man a strong believer in Christianity and so he visits several prisons around Maryland to spread his faith but to the prisoners he is not just a man of God he can trust to friend who's had a profound impact on their lives who come through the door some days he'll be singing even look up at him. The worries or concerns. Everything vanishes. OK I can look at the bars and I don't see the bars. He can recite just about any passage of the Bible and he preaches a pretty good sermon for a verse but it's not always what he says that impresses the prisoners. He showed us that he cares about the official person not just as he writes a group. He listens he's never been judged it didn't matter that we were convicted felons but that you are a person. Yeah that's what his. His whole presence has been since I came here.

I've seen murderers. Rectified what they've done. I've seen really push. It they really know. Where they're wrong. I talk to him all the time. There are several religious volunteers in the prisons but Mr. Spangler stands out. Perhaps it's his age he's 80. Perhaps it's his devotion. He spends 50 to 60 hours a week volunteering. But ask the prisoners they'll tell you he is a genuine man who treats them as human beings. He just hugs you you know you don't feel you know if you want to and I don't know any other any way. Thank you brother no problem this is a medium security prison. And so Mr. Spangler works with people who have committed everything from robbery even murder. But he doesn't like to ask why they're in here. We're looking at the present the future the patches going you can't do nothing about it. He could go back and parts and back to life and

he can rectify it with the family or something but. He can't make that right. Mr. Spangler first started coming to prison to lead Bible Studies and a new sentence and he has built strong relationships with hundreds of inmates. I'm not no I'm not. You know Goody Two-Shoes a nun at this but I know what has helped rule. He's called for Roderick Craven's remembers a particularly rough time in his life. There had been several deaths in his family and his sister was diagnosed with cancer. At this particular time at the time when I really need someone. He was the one that I could talk to and confide in you won't you come and visit me in the Mr. Spangler says his life changed when his son died tragically in a car accident. May one last thing I'm going to kill a lot harder to be opened up that I can share with things like my own collection. Like Mr. Spangler has also developed the trust of the Warden Pete waters so the two are

close friends. He's like a doctor carrying a bag of medicine he carries a bag tougher. We're going waters will allow Mr. Spangler to go almost anywhere in the prison even to the toughest sections of the nominations they are going to lock up talk with those guys and try to get their lives turned over but he go a lot of them you know a lot of people only like going back to Mr. Spangler says he will continue to visit the prisoners as long as he can. In many ways they are his family has a prisoner's he is what they call an outsider who has made it his mission to bring warmth and caring into their lives. I believe with all my heart the only reason that I'm alive today because I get my energy. Sharing some little I mean nice man means something. In Washington County I'm Peter Bickford. Inside Maryland.